The Four Cardinal Virtues Prudence Justice Fortitude Temperance

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JOSEF PIEPER

THE FOUR
CARDINAL
VIRTUES

Prudence., justice,
Fortitude, Temperance

Characteristic of all the writings o Josef
Pieper is his ability to discuss the Christian
virtues in a way which is at once abstract and
concrete, theoretical and practical. The argu-
ment of this modern Thomist appears to move
with effortless ease and untroubled lucidity on
the highest plane of abstraction. Yet from this
altitude he throws a brilliant light upon the
problems, personal, social, and political, which
none of us in our daily lives can escape.

This volume brings together, in revised
form and with a new iuU eduction, Di. Pieper's
four studies of the cardinal virtues, previously
published in separate volumes. Prudence, Jus-
tia , Fortitude, and Temperance were con-
sidered by T~fiert rnd Chi i at" an philosophy
as basic to right conduct. Dr. Pieper redefines
the original significance of these virtues and
their i uerreladon, and brings them close to
readers today.

Translated by Richard and Clara Winston,
Lawrence E. Lynch, and Daniel F. Coogan

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The Four Cardinal Virtues

PRUDENCE
JUSTICE
FORTITUDE
TEMPERANCE

JOSEF PIEPER

Copyright 1954, 1955, 1959 by Pantheon Books Inc.
Copyright 1965 by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-14713

FIRST EDITION

The studies united here in one volume were published sepa-
rately in this sequence:

Fortitude and Temper unce 1954

Jttstice 1955

Prudence 1959

First published in Germany under the titles, Vom Sinn der
Tapferkeit, Zucht und Mass, Uber die Gerechtigkeit, Traktat
iiber die Klugbeit, by Kosel-Verlag. The present edition was
edited by the author and slightly cut to avoid repetitions; notes
and source references have been deleted. All quotations in the
text are taken from works of Thomas Aquinas, unless the au-
thor is otherwise identified.

Prudence is a translation of Traktat iiber die Klugheit, and was
translated by Richard and Clara Winston.

Justice is a translation of Uber die Gerechtigkeit, and was trans-
lated by Lawrence E. Lynch.

Fortitude is a translation of Vom Sinn der Tapferkeit, and was
translated by Daniel F. Coogan.

Temperance is a translation of Zucht und Mass, and was trans-
lated by Daniel F. Coogan.

To the memory of my son
THOMAS PIEPER

who, as a young scientist, 'went
to the United States in September 1963,
and suddenly died there on
July 24, 1964.

CONTENTS

The Effect on the Status of Tibet 43

Events Leading to the Third Expedition 46

Changes in the Status of Tibet after the Third Expedition 48

Events Leading to the Conquest of Nepal 51

Exercise of Full Chinese Sovereignty in Tibet 53

Imperial Authority on the Decline 59

China Attempts to Resume Full Sovereignty in Tibet 65

IV. TIBET AS A BUFFER STATE 70

Early Contact with the West 70

Futile Efforts of the English to Open Tibet 71

Tibetan Reaction to the Approach of the British 75

Events Leading to the British Expedition 79

Lord Curzon's Altered or Forward Policy 81

Dispatch of the British Armed Mission 87

Lhasa Reached and a Convention Imposed 92

The Convention Amended in Deference to London

Authority 97

The New Status Created by the Lhasa Arrangement 101

Chinese Adherence to the Lhasa Convention 107

Trade Regulations Signed by Anglo-Chinese Plenipotenti-
aries and the Tibetan Delegate 114

Trade Regulations Signed by Anglo-Chinese Plenipotenti-

Russian Convention 118

The Anglo-Russian Convention's Effect on British-Russian

Mutual Dealings and Respective Conduct 124

V. TIBET UNDER THE REPUBLICAN REGIME 130

Negotiations Leading to the Simla Conference 130

The Simla Conference and Its Failure 135

Renewed Bargaining between Russia and Britain 142

Renewed Negotiations under British Pressure 144

The Panch'en Lama's Flight to China Proper 147

The Dalai Lama Turning Strongly Away from Britain

toward China 148

Contents

PREFACE XI
PRUDENCE

1. The First of the Cardinal Virtues 5

2. Knowledge of Reality and the

Realization of the Good w

3. Delimitations and Contrasts 23

4. Prudence and Charity 32

JUSTICE

/. On Eights 43

2. Duty in Relation to "The Other" 54

3. The Rank of Justice 64

4. The Three Basic Forms of Justice 70
J, Recompense and Restitution 76

6. Distributive Justice Si

7, The Limits of Justice 104

FORTITUDE

1. Readiness to Fall in Battle 7/7

2. Fortitude Must Not Trust Itself 122

3. Endurance and Attack 126

4. Vital, Moral, Mystic Fortitude 134

Preface

WHEN AGATHON in Plato's Symposium takes his turn at
making a speech in praise of Love, he organizes his ideas
around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude,
and temperance. An avant-garde intellectual who, incidentally,
is the host at that famous banquet, Agathon offers no special
reasons for this approach. That is, the contemporaries of
Socrates already took for granted these traditional categories
sprung from the earliest speculative thinking. They took for
granted not only the idea of virtue, which signifies human
Tightness, but also the attempt to define it in that fourfold
spectrum. This particular intellectual framework, the formula
which is called the "doctrine of virtue," was one of the great
discoveries in the history of man's self-understanding, and it
has continued to be part and parcel of the European mind. It
has become a basic component of the European consciousness,
as the result of centuries of persistent intellectual endeavor by
all the creative elements of the emerging West, both the
Greeks (Plato, Aristotle) and the Romans (Cicero, Seneca),
both Judaism (Philo) and Christianity (Clement of Alexan-
dria, St. Augustine).

It is true that the classic origins of the doctrine of virtue
later made Christian critics suspicious of it. They warily re-
garded it as too philosophical and not Scriptural enough. Thus,
they preferred to talk about commandments and duties rather
than about virtues. To define the obligations of man is cer-
tainly a legitimate, even estimable, and no doubt necessary

PREFACE

undertaking. With a doctrine of commandments or duties,
however, there is always the danger of arbitrarily drawing up
a list of requirements and losing sight of the human person who
"ought" to do this or that. The doctrine of virtue, on the other
hand, has things to say about this human person; it speaks both
of the kind of being which is his when he enters the world, as
a consequence of his createdness, and the kind of being he
ought to strive toward and attain to by being prudent, just,
brave, and temperate. The doctrine of virtue, that is, is one
form of the doctrine of obligation; but one by nature free of
regimentation and restriction. On the contrary, its aim is to
clear a trail, to open a way.

But this is not the place to launch a disputation on the
various possible modes of ethical statement. Rather, what I
wish to do is to describe just one of those modes, and to reveal,
as far as possible, its full reach: that team of four, the basic
virtues, which, as a fine classical phrase put it, can enable man
to attain the furthest potentialities of his nature.

In this realm, originality of thought and diction is of small
importance should, in fact, be distrusted. It can hardly be ex-
pected that there will be entirely new insights on such a sub-
ject. We may well turn to the "wisdom of the ancients" in
our human quest to understand reality, for that wisdom con-
tains a truly inexhaustible contemporaneity. The intention of
this book is to reveal some of that contemporaneity.

Some readers may wonder why, in my effort to revive a
classical heritage, I so often cite a certain medieval writer,
Thomas Aquinas. I do so not from a more or less accidental
historical interest, but because I believe that the testimony of
the "universal teacher" of a still undivided Western Christian-
ity has a special value. This lies not so much in his personal
genius as in the truly creative selflessness with which he ex-
pressed the vast, contrapuntal range of possible statements
about the cosmos even as he recognized and called upon his
readers to go beyond the limitations of his own vision. Marked

xii

Preface

though this thought is by an altogether extraordinary grasp
and the most disciplined, dynamic, and penetrating independ-
ent thinking, there yet speaks through it less the individual
writer, Thomas Aquinas, than the voice of the great tradition
of human wisdom itself.

The interpreter, in these latter days, invokes this tradition
in the hope of seeming less ridiculous as he boldly drafts a
moral standard for humanity which he, in his own daily life,
is utterly unable to meet.

L The First of the
Cardinal Virtues

NO DICTUM in traditional Christian doctrine strikes such
a note of strangeness to the ears of contemporaries, even con-
temporary Christians, as this one: that the virtue of prudence
is the mold and "mother" of all the other cardinal virtues, of
justice, fortitude, and temperance. In other words, none but
the prudent man can be just, brave, and temperate, and the
good man is good in so far as he is prudent.

Our uneasiness and alienation would be only the greater If
we were to take the proposition as seriously as it is meant. But
we have grown accustomed to disregarding such hierarchic
rankings among spiritual and ethical qualities. This is especially
true for the "virtues." We assume that they are allegories, and
that there is really no need to assign them an order of rank. We
tend to think that it does not matter at all which of the four
cardinal virtues may have drawn first prize in the lottery ar-
ranged by "scholastic" theologians.

Yet the fact is that nothing less than the whole ordered
structure of the Occidental Christian view of man rests upon
the pre-eminence of prudence over the other virtues. The
structural framework of Occidental Christian metaphysics as a
whole stands revealed, perhaps more plainly than in any other
single ethical dictum, in the proposition that prudence is the

PRUDENCE

foremost of the virtues. That structure is built thus: that Being
precedes Truth, and that Truth precedes the Good. Indeed,
the living fire at the heart of the dictum is the central mystery
of Christian theology: that the Father begets the Eternal
Word, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds out of the Father and
the Word.

Since this is so, there is a larger significance in the fact that
people today can respond to this assertion of the pre-eminence
of prudence only with incomprehension and uneasiness. That
they feel it as strange may well reveal a deeper-seated and
more total estrangement. It may mean that they no longer feel
the binding force of the Christian Occidental view of man. It
may denote the beginning of an incomprehension of the fun-
damentals of Christian teaching in regard to the nature of real-
ity.

To the contemporary mind, prudence seems less a prerequi-
site to goodness than an evasion of it. The statement that it is
prudence which makes an action good strikes us as well-nigh
ridiculous. Should we hear it said, we tend to misunderstand
the phrase, and take it as a tribute to undisguised utilitarianism.
For we think of prudence as far more akin to the idea of mere
utility, the bommi utile, than to the ideal of nobility, the
bomcm honestum. In colloquial use, prudence always car-
ries the connotation of timorous, small-minded self-pres-
ervation, of a rather selfish concern about oneself. Neither of
these traits is compatible with nobility; both are unworthy of
the noble man.

It is therefore difficult for us to understand that the second
cardinal virtue, justice, and all that is included in the word, can
be said to derive from prudence. Certainly the common mind
regards prudence and fortitude as virtually contradictory
ideas, A "prudent" man is thought to be one who avoids the
embarrassing situation of having to be brave. The "prudent"
man is the "clever tactician" who contrives to escape personal

The First of the Cardinal Virtues

commitment. Those who shun danger are wont to account for
their attitude by appealing to the necessity for "prudence."

To the modern way of thinking, there seems to be a more
obvious connection between prudence and the fourth cardinal
virtue, that of temperance. But here too we will discover, if
we dig deeper, that both these virtues are being beheld in quite
a different light from the original great conception of them.
For temperance, the disciplining of the instinctive craving for
pleasure, was never meant to be exercised to induce a quietis-
tic, philistine dullness. Yet this is what is implied in common
phrases about "prudent moderation." That implication comes
to the surface when people sneer at the noble daring of a
celibate life, or the rigors of real fasting. They will speak
scornfully of such practices as "imprudent exaggerations." In
similar wise, they will condemn the forthright wrath of forti-
tude as aggressiveness.

To the contemporary mind, then, the concept of the good
rather excludes than includes prudence. Modern man cannot
conceive of a good act which might not be imprudent, nor of
a bad act which might not be prudent. He will often call lies
and cowardice prudent, truthfulness and courageous sacrifice
imprudent.

Classical Christian ethics, on the contrary, maintains that
man can be prudent and good only simultaneously; that pru-
dence is part and parcel of the definition of goodness; that
there is no sort of justice and fortitude which runs counter to
the virtue of prudence; and that the unjust man has been im-
prudent before and is imprudent at the moment he is unjust.
Omnis virtus moralis debet esse prudens All virtue is neces-
sarily prudent.

The general ethical attitudes of our era, as revealed in the
conventions of everyday language, are shared by systematic

PRUDENCE

moral theology it is difficult to say which takes the lead,
which is the follower. Perhaps both express a deeper process
of spiritual change. At any rate, there is no doubt about the
result: modern religious teachings have little or nothing to say
about the place of prudence in life or in the hierarchy of
virtues. Even the modern moral theologian who claims, or
aspires, to be a follower of classical theology, displays this
same uneasiness about prudence. One of the foremost contem-
porary theologians actually suggests that latter-day moral theo-
logians have practiced a kind of suppression of the tract on
prudence (quasi-suppression du traite de la prudence). When
an occasional contemporary treatise on moral theology does
attempt to deal resolutely with Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of
the virtues, the author, significantly enough, must spend much
labor on a polemic justifying this "regression."

Classical theology has been forced to resort to an immense
variety of concepts and images in order to systematize the
place of prudence and define its meaning with some degree of
clarity. The very laboriousness of the definitions indicates that
the classical theologians were here dealing with an essential
problem of meaning and hierarchy, that the ordering of the
virtues was not accidental

Prudence is the cause of the other virtues 7 being virtues at
all. For example, there may be a kind of instinctive governance
of instinctual cravings; but only prudence transforms this in-
stinctive governance into the "virtue" of temperance. Virtue is
a "perfected ability" of man as a spiritual person; and justice,
fortitude, and temperance, as "abilities" of the whole man,
achieve their "perfection" only when they are founded upon
prudence, that is to say upon the perfected ability to make
right decisions. Only by means of this perfected ability to
make good choices are instinctive inclinations toward goodness
exalted into the spiritual core of man's decisions, from which

The First of the Cardinal Virtues

truly human acts arise. Prudence is needed if man is to carry
through his impulses and instincts for right acting, if he is to
purify his naturally good predispositions and make them into
real virtue, that is, into the truly human mode of "perfected
ability."

Prudence is the "measure" of justice, of fortitude, of temper-
ance. This means simply the following: as in the creative cogni-
tion of God all created things are pre-imaged and pre-formed;
as, therefore, the immanent essences of all reality dwell in God
as "ideas," as "preceding images" (to use the term of Meister
Eckhart); and as man's perception of reality is a receptive
transcript of the objective world of being; and as the artist's
works are transcripts of a living prototype already within his
creative cognition so the decree of prudence is the prototype
and the pre-existing form of which all ethically good action is
the transcript. The precept of prudence is the "permanently
exterior prototype" by which the good deed is what it is; a
good action becomes just, brave, temperate only as the conse-
quence of the prototypal decree of prudence. Creation is what
it is by its correspondence with the "standard" of God's crea-
tive knowledge; human cognition is true by its correspondence
with the "standard" of objective reality. The work of art is
true and real by its correspondence with the pattern of its
prototype in the mind of the artist. In similar fashion, the free
activity of man is good by its correspondence with the pattern
of prudence. What is prudent and what is good are substan-
tially one and the same; they differ only in their place in the
logical succession of realization. For whatever is good must
first have been prudent.

Prudence "informs" the other virtues; it confers upon them
the form of their inner essence. This dictum expresses the same
idea in different manner. The "immanent essential form" of
goodness, however, is in its very essence formed after that
prototype, patterned after that pre-form. And so prudence
imprints the inward seal of goodness upon all free activity of

PRUDENCE

man. Ethical virtue is the print and seal placed by prudence
upon volition and action. Prudence works in all the virtues;
and all virtue participates in prudence.

All Ten Commandments of God pertain to the executio
prudentiae, the realization in practice of prudence. Here is a
statement that has become virtually incomprehensible to peo-
ple of today. And every sin is opposed to prudence. Injustice,
cowardice, intemperance are in direct opposition to the virtues
of justice, fortitude, and temperance; ultimately, however,
through all these virtues, they run counter to prudence. Every-
one who sins is imprudent.

Thus prudence is cause, root, mother, measure, precept,
guide, and prototype of all ethical virtues; it acts in all of
them, perfecting them to their true nature, all participate in it,
and by virtue of this participation they are virtues.

The intrinsic goodness of man and that is the same as say-
ing his true humanness consists in this, that "reason perfected
in the cognition of truth" shall inwardly shape and imprint his
volition and action. In this fundamental principle of Thomas
Aquinas is summed up the whole doctrine of prudence; in it
the joint significance of all the ideas and figures of speech
put forward heretofore becomes apparent, figures by which
Thomas sets forth, step by step, the precedence of prudence.

The same idea is expressed in the liturgy of the Church in
the following manner, in the words of prayer: Deus, qui
errantibus, ut in viam possint redire justitiae, veritatis tuae lu-
men ostendis God, Thou showest the erring the light of Thy
truth, that they may return to the way of justice. Truth, then,
is the prerequisite of justice. Whoever rejects truth, whether
natural or supernatural, is really "wicked" and beyond conver-
sion. And from the realm of "natural" philosophizing, the
realm which the supernatural "presupposes and perfects," we

The First of the Cardinal Virtues

may call to mind Goethe's saying: "All laws and rules of con-
duct may ultimately be reduced to a single one: to truth."

We incline all too quickly to misunderstand Thomas
Aquinas's words about "reason perfected in the cognition of
truth." "Reason" means to him nothing other than "regard for
and openness to reality," and "acceptance of reality." And
"truth" is to him nothing other than the unveiling and revela-
tion of reality, of both natural and supernatural reality. Reason
"perfected in the cognition of truth" is therefore the receptiv-
ity of the human spirit, to which the revelation of reality,
both natural and supernatural reality, has given substance.

Certainly prudence is the standard of volition and action;
but the standard of prudence, on the other hand, is the ipsa
res, the "thing itself," the objective reality of being. And there-
fore the pre-eminence of prudence signifies first of all the
direction of volition and action toward truth; but finally it
signifies the directing of volition and action toward objective
reality. The good is prudent beforehand; but that is prudent
which is in keeping with reality.

2. Knowledge of Reality and the
Realization of the Good

THE PRE-EMINENCE of prudence means that realization
of the good presupposes knowledge of reality. He alone can
do good who knows what things are like and what their situa-
tion is. The pre-eminence of prudence means that so-called
"good intention" and so-called "meaning well" by no means
suffice. Realization of the good presupposes that our actions
are appropriate to the real situation, that is to the concrete
realities which form the "environment" of a concrete human
action; and that we therefore take this concrete reality se-
riously, with clear-eyed objectivity.

The prudent decisions, which, when realized, shape our free
action, are fed from two sources: "It is necessary for the pru-
dent man to know both the universal principles of reason and
the singulars with which ethical action is concerned."

The universal principles of practical intellect are given man
through synderesis.* Thus these principles permeate all con-
crete decisions just as the highest principles of speculative rea-
son permeate all specific judgments. In the dictates of natural
conscience the most generalized cognition of the essence of the

* That part of conscience which concerns the most general and funda-
mental naturally apprehended principles of ethical conduct, and which
therefore may be designated as innate conscience, or natural conscience,
or primary conscience.

10

Knowledge of Reality and the Realization of the Good

good becomes an imperative. "That the good must be loved
and made reality" this sentence (with what follows directly
from it) is the message given us by natural conscience. It ex-
presses the common goals of all human action. The "infused"
prudence of the Christian presupposes, moreover, the three
theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. In these three
the Christian becomes aware that participation in the life of
the Trinitarian God is the supernal goal of Christian existence.

Prudence, however, is not concerned directly with the ulti-
mate natural and supernatural ends of human life, but
with the means to these ends. The special nature of prudence
is not the presence in the mind of "universal principles" (al-
though it is necessary for those principles to be present if one
is to make prudent decisions: synderesis movet frudentiam\
and although the theological virtues are an indispensable
foundation to Christian prudence). The special nature of pru-
dence is its concern with the realm of "ways and means" and
down-to-earth realities.

The living unity, incidentally, of synderesis and prudence is
nothing less than the thing we commonly call "conscience."

Prudence, or rather perfected practical reason which has
developed into prudence, is distinct from "synderesis" in that
it applies to specific situations. We may, if we will, call it the
"situation conscience." Just as the understanding of principles
is necessary to specific knowledge, so natural conscience is the
prerequisite and the soil for the concrete decisions of the "sit-
uation conscience," and in these decisions natural conscience
first comes to a definite realization.

It is well, therefore, to remember, as we consider the forego-
ing and the following comments, that the word "conscience" is
intimately related to and well-nigh interchangeable with the
word "prudence."

As the "right disposition" of practical reason, prudence
looks two ways, just as does practical reason itself. It is cogni-

n

tive and deciding. Perceptively it is turned toward reality,
"imperatively" toward volition and action. But the cognitive
aspect is prior and sets a standard; decision, which in its turn
sets a standard for volition and action, receives, as something
secondary and subordinate, its own standard from cognition.
The decree of prudence is, as Thomas says, a "directing cogni-
tion"; prudent decision rests upon the revaluation of preced-
ing true cognitions. (This primary and fundamental cognitive
aspect of prudence is, incidentally, confirmed by the direct
meaning of the Latin con-scientia, which includes knowledge
[sciential ; and as we have said, conscience and prudence mean,
in a certain sense, the same thing.)

Prudence, however, is not only cognition, not only knowing
what is what. The prime thing is that this knowledge of reality
must be transformed into the prudent decision which takes
effect directly in its execution. Prudence is immediately di-
rected toward concrete realization; hence the difference be-
tween knowledge as viewed by moral science, including
"casuistic" moral science, and knowledge as viewed by pru-
dence. It is important not to mistake these two forms of ethical
knowledge for one another. We shall return to this subject
later.

The formal "mechanism" of that transformation of true
knowledge into prudent decisions is a matter I have dealt with
elsewhere. The stages of the transformation are: deliberation,
judgment, decision. In the receptive-perceptive attitude of
deliberation and judgment is represented the cognitive charac-
ter of prudence (prudentia sectmdwn quod est cognoscitiva),
while the last stage represents the imperative character (secun-
dum quod est praeceptiva) .

The various modes of imperfection in that transformation of
true cognitions into prudent decisions represent various types
of imprudence.

7-2

Knowledge of Reality and the 'Realization of the Good

For example, the person who plunges head over heels into
decision and action, without proper consideration and without
well-founded judgment, is being imprudent in the mode of
thoughtlessness. The phrase that comes to our minds in this
connection is that of "energetic promptness," and we are not
inclined to feel it as blameworthy. It is therefore well to re-
member that there are two ways of being "swift" and "slow":
in deliberation and in action. Thomas says, as did the Greeks
before him: In deliberation we may hesitate; but a considered
act must be performed swiftly. Moreover, Thomas considers
the capacity for instantly grasping an unexpected situation,
and deciding with extreme quick-wittedness, to be one of the
components of perfect prudence. Solertia, clear-sighted objec-
tivity in the face of the unexpected, is expressly listed in the
Summa Theologica as one of the prerequisites without which
prudence remains imperfect.

A second mode of imprudence is irresoluteness. It violates
and ruptures at another, at the truly decisive point, the path of
transformation of true knowledge into the "imperative" of
prudence. It leads to deliberation and judgment tumbling use-
lessly into futility instead of pouring usefully into the finality
of a decision. But the true "praise" of prudence lies in decision
which is directed straight toward application in action.

Co-ordinate with the two aspects of prudence (the one di-
rected toward objective reality and the other toward realiza-
tion of the good) is the double set of prerequisites to which
the perfection of prudence is bound. We must now speak of
these prerequisites, and shall turn first to those concerning
"prudence as cognition."

"Prudence as cognition," as cognition of the concrete situa-
tion of concrete action, includes above all the ability to be still
in order to attain objective perception of reality. There is in
addition the patient effort of experience (experimentum) r
which cannot be evaded or replaced by any arbitrary, short-

circuiting resort to "faith" let alone by the "philosophical
point of view which confines itself to seeing the general rathe
than the particular.

It is true that every Christian receives in baptism, along wit]
the new life of friendship with God, a supernatural "infused
prudence. But, says Thomas, this prudence granted to ever
Christian is limited solely to what is necessary for his eterna
salvation; there is, however, a different, "fuller" prudence, no
immediately granted in baptism, which enables a man "t<
make provision for himself and for others, not only in matter
necessary for salvation, but also in all relating to human life.
This is that prudence in which supernatural grace has unitei
with the "prerequisite" of a naturally perfected ability. Ther
is, in the Summa Theologica, a sentence which is, incidentally
extremely comforting: "Those who need to be guided by th
counsel of others, are able, if they have grace, to take counse
for themselves in this point at least, that they require the coun
sel of others and can distinguish good from evil counsel." Thi
is a statement which gives its due to the higher eminence o
that "fuller" prudence. We must, however, guard against th
misunderstanding that Thomas is speaking here of a pre-emi
nence of natural and "acquired" prudence over supernatura
and "infused" prudence; rather, he means the pre-eminence o
that "fuller" prudence in which the natural and the super
natural, the acquired and the given, are combined in a felici
tous, in a literally "graced" unity.

The attitude of "silent" contemplation of reality: this is th
key prerequisite for the perfection of prudence as cognitior
which perfection in turn involves three elements, namely
memoria, docilitas, sokrtia.

Memoria memory here means more than the capacity fo
recollection which we have, so to speak, by nature. Nor has i
anything to do with any "mnemo-technical" capacity not t

Knowledge of Reality and the Realization of the Goad

forget. The good memory which enters into the perfection of
prudence means nothing less than "true-to-being" memory.

For the virtue of prudence resides in this: that the objective
cognition of reality shall determine action; that the truth of
real things shall become determinative. This truth of real
things, however, is contained in the true-to-faeing memory.
The true-to-being character of memory means simply that it
"contains" in itself real things and events as they really are and
were. The falsification of recollection by the assent or nega-
tion of the will is memory's worst foe; for it most directly
frustrates its primary function: to be a "container" of the
truth of real things. (In terms of this meaning of memory St.
Augustine's often misunderstood analogia trinitatis becomes a
good deal plainer; to him memory is the spiritual proto-reality
from which thought and volition take their origin; and thus it
seems to him an image of God the Father, from whom the
Word and the Holy Spirit proceed.)

Thomas adduces true-to-being memory as the first prerequi-
site for the perfection of prudence; and indeed this factor is the
most imperiled of all. Nowhere else is the danger so great as
here, at the deepest root of the spiritual-ethical process, the
danger that the truth of real things will be falsified by the
assent or negation of the will. The peril is the greater for its
being so imperceptible. There is no more insidious way for
error to establish itself than by this falsification of the memory
through slight retouches, displacements, discolorations, omis-
sions, shifts of accent. Nor can such falsification be quickly
detected by the probing conscience, even when it applies itself
to this task. The honesty of the memory can be ensured only
by a rectitude of the whole human being which purifies the
most hidden roots of volition. Here it becomes apparent how
greatly prudence, upon which all virtue depends, is in its turn
dependent at its very fundaments on the totality of the other
virtues, and above all on the virtue of justice. We shall return

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to the subject of this reciprocal dependence, for each side of
the equation deserves analysis.

We see, then, that more is at stake here than "psychology";
it is, rather, the metaphysics of the ethical person that is in-
volved.

It therefore becomes apparent that the classically Christian
concept of the "virtue of prudence" is a far cry from the
ordinary idea of it as knowledge of what to do in a given
situation, a knowledge acquired without any great difficulty.
The virtue of prudence, too, is a bonum arduum, a "steep
good."

"No man is altogether self-sufficient in matters of
prudence"; without docilitas there is no perfect prudence. Do-
cilitasy however, is of course not the "docility" and the simple-
minded zealousness of the "good pupil." Rather, what is meant
is the kind of open-mindedness which recognizes the true va-
riety of things and situations to be experienced and does not
cage itself in any presumption of deceptive knowledge. What
is meant is the ability to take advice, sprung not from any
vague "modesty," but simply from the desire for real under-
standing (which, however, necessarily includes genuine humil-
ity). A closed mind and know-it-allness are fundamentally
forms of resistance to the truth of real things; both reveal the
incapacity of the subject to practice that silence which is the
absolute prerequisite to all perception of reality.

Solertia is a "perfected ability," by virtue of which man,
when confronted with a sudden event, does not close his eyes
by reflex and then blindly, though perhaps boisterously, take
random action. Rather, with the aid of solertia he can swiftly,
but with open eyes and clear-sighted vision, decide for the
good, avoiding the pitfalls of injustice, cowardice, and intem-
perance. Without this virtue of "objectivity in unexpected sit-
uations," perfect prudence is not possible.

16

Knowledge of Reality and the Realization of the Good

In saying this, more is predicated than may be immediately
apparent. Whoever has some understanding of the physico-
spiritual structure of man knows to what extent physical and
psychical health is necessary for the perfected ability of soler-
tia, especially in that realm which is the site of neurosis, where
it both originates and can be overcome. (And that realm here
we have one of the strange ambiguities of the human soul in
its depths, so removed from consciousness, is shaped and per-
meated by properly ethical decisions, that is, by freedom.)
Here again, then, as in so many other things, we see the high
and austere demands which the classical Christian doctrine of
prudence makes upon physical alertness and health, and upon
"trained" physico-spiritual energies.

One marginal note: The "nimbleness" in response to new
situations, which is included in solertia, is in no way akin to
fickleness; not unless we were to regard a closed mind and
resistance to the truth of real things, all of which are of ever-
changing form, as tokens of high-mindedness. In saying this,
however, we assume that this nimbleness serves the finis totius
vitae, the genuine and immutable end of human life, and that
these ever-changing forms are compatible with the truth of
real things.

Trueness-to-being of memory, open-mindedness, clear-
sighted objectivity in unexpected circumstances: these are qual-
ities of mind of the prudent man.

All three are focused upon what is "already" real, upon
things past and present, things and situations which are "just
so and no different," and which in their actuality bear the seal
of a certain necessariness.

The prudent man who issues imperatives, makes resolutions
and decisions, however, fixes his attention precisely upon what
has "not yet" been realized, what is still to be realized. The
first prerequisite for the perfection of "prudence as
imperative" is, therefore, providentia, foresight. By this is

n

PRUDENCE

meant the capacity to estimate, with a sure instinct for the
future, whether a particular action will lead to the realization
of the goal

At this point the element of uncertainty and risk in every
moral decision comes to light. In the decisions of prudence,
which by the very nature of prudence are concerned with
things concrete, contingent, and future (singularia, contingen-
tly futura), there cannot be that certainty which is possible in
a theoretical conclusion. This is what the casuists fail to under-
stand. But since prudence is after all an "intellectual virtue,"
shall we not also ascribe to its decisions "the certitude of
truth" (certitudo veritatis)"? To this suggestion Thomas
Aquinas responds: "non potest certitudo prudentiae tanta esse
quod ornnino solicitude tollatur" the certitude of prudence
cannot be so great as completely to remove all anxiety. A
profound statement, this! Man, then, when he comes to a deci-
sion, cannot ever be sufficiently prescient nor can he wait until
logic affords him absolute certainty. If he waited for that, he
would never come to a decision; he would remain in a state of
inconclusiveness, unless he chose to make shift with a decep-
tive certitude. The prudent man does not expect certainty
where it cannot exist, nor on the other hand does he deceive
himself by false certainties.

The decisions of prudence and the "intuitions" of providen-
tia (which, incidentally, Thomas considers to be the most im-
portant component of perfect prudence he points out in fact
that the name, prudentia, stems from providentia) nevertheless
receive "practical" assurance and reinforcement from several
sources: from the experience of life as it has been lived; from
the alertness and healthiness of the instinctive capacity for
evaluation; from the daring and humble hope that the paths to
man's genuine goals cannot be closed to him; from rectitude of
volition and of ultimate "intention"; from the grace of direct
and mediated divine guidance.

Knowledge of Reality and the Realization of the Good

There are two manners in which man can fail to meet the
demands included in the virtue of prudence.

First of all, by an actual failure and lagging behind, by
the nonfulfillment of the active prerequisites of prudence.
Thoughtlessness and indecisiveness, of which we have already
spoken, thus come under the heading of imprudence; so also
do negligence and blindness to the concrete realities which
surround our actions; likewise remissness in decision. There is
one thing which is common to all these forms of prudence:
something is "lacking." There is a defectus, an absence of a
needed quality. There is a "lack" of proper consideration, of
well-founded judgment, of vigorous final decisiveness. We are
astonished, and yet to some extent we understand, when
Thomas Aquinas discovers that these imprudences of "omis-
sion" have their origin in unchastity, in that surrender to the
goods of the sensual world which splits the power of decision
in two.

It is, on the other hand, astonishing, surprising as a flash of
lightning, but also as illuminating, to observe the manner in
which Thomas traces the second group of imprudences to a
common origin. But let us first discuss this other mode of
imprudence. It differs from that "lack" which is the common
element of thoughtlessness, indecisiveness, and negligence in
the way that a dishonest affirmation differs from negation, that
an apparent similarity differs from simple oppositeness. It is
the difference between faulty prudence and, so to speak,
"plain" imprudence. In the qwestio in which he treats of the
false prudences Thomas speaks first of the "prudence of the
flesh." Instead of serving the true end of all of human life, this
prudence is directed solely toward the goods of the body and
is, according to the Epistle to the Romans (8, 6f.), "death" and
"the enemy of God." But then he devotes several articles to
discussing "cunning."

Cunning (astutia) is the most characteristic form of false
prudence. What is meant by this is the insidious and unobjec-

PRUDENCE

tive temperament of the intriguer who has regard only for
"tactics," who can neither face things squarely nor act straight-
forwardly. In the letters of the Apostle Paul this idea of astutia
occurs several times in a contrast which helps to clarify it, for
it is opposed to "making the truth publicly known" (manifesta-
tio veritatis, II Cor. 4, 2) and to the purity of unclouded
"innocence" (simplicitas, II Cor. 11, 3). The same concept of
simplicitas recurs in the legend of this book: "If thy eye is
single, the whole of thy body will be lit up" (Matt. 6, 22).

There can be false and crooked ways leading even to right
goals. The meaning of the virtue of prudence, however, is
primarily this: that not only the end of human action but also
the means for its realization shall be in keeping with the truth
of real things. This in turn necessitates that the egocentric
"interests" of man be silenced in order that he may perceive
the truth of real things, and so that reality itself may guide him
to the proper means for realizing his goal. On the other hand,
the meaning, or rather the folly, of cunning consists in this:
that the loquacious and therefore unhearing bias of the "tacti-
cian" (only he who is silent can hear) obstructs the path of
realization, blocks it off from the truth of real things. "Nor
should a good end be pursued by means that are false and
counterfeit but by such as are true," says Thomas. Here there
comes to light the affinity of prudence and of the clear-eyed
virtue of magnanimity. Insidiousness, guile, craft, and concupis-
cence are the refuge of small-minded and small-souled
persons. Of magnanimity, however, Thomas declares in the
Suwma Theologica and Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics
that it prefers in all things to act openly.

Astonishing, as we have said, and of a profundity scarcely to
be plumbed, is the statement of Thomas Aquinas that all these
false prudences and superprudences arise from covetousness
and are by nature akin to it.

20

Knowledge of Reality and the Realization of the Good

This statement once again casts a dazzling new light upon
the virtue of prudence itself and the fundamental human atti-
tude operating within that virtue. It includes the unspoken
axiom that prudence is specially opposed to covetousness. As
though an explosive charge had opened a new path, there is
suddenly revealed a connection between various trains of ideas
which previously seemed to have no connection,

"Covetousness" here means more than the disorderly love of
money and property. Covetousness here means (as Thomas
says in a phrase of Gregory the Great's) immoderate straining
for all the possessions which man thinks are needed to assure
his own importance and status (altitudo, sublimitas). Covetous-
ness means an anxious senility, desperate self-preservation, over-
riding concern for confirmation and security. Need we say
how utterly contrary such an attitude is to the fundamental
bent of prudence; how impossible the informed and receptive
silence of the subject before the truth of real things, how
impossible just estimate and decision is, without a youthful
spirit of brave trust and, as it were, a reckless tossing away of
anxious self-preservation, a relinquishment of all egoistic bias
toward mere confirmation of the self; how utterly, therefore,
the virtue of prudence is dependent upon the constant readi-
ness to ignore the self, the limberness of real humility and
objectivity?

Now at last we see how closely and directly prudence and
justice arc linked. "Now among all the moral virtues it is jus-
tice wherein the use of right reason" that is, of prudence
"appears chiefly. . . . Hence the undue use of reason appears
chiefly in the vices opposed to justice, the chief of which is
covetousness." Whoever looks only at himself and therefore
does not permit the truth of real things to have its way can be
neither just nor brave nor temperate but above all he cannot
be just. For the foremost requirement for the realization of

21

PRUDENCE

justice is that man turn his eyes away from himself. It is not by
chance that in everyday talk the ideas of partiality and injus-
tice come to almost the same thing.

Prudence, then, is the mold and mother of all virtues, the
circumspect and resolute shaping power of our minds which
transforms knowledge of reality into realization of the good. It
holds within itself the humility of silent, that is to say, of
unbiased perception; the trueness-to-being of memory; the art
of receiving counsel; alert, composed readiness for the unex-
pected. Prudence means the studied seriousness and, as it were,
the filter of deliberation, and at the same time the brave bold-
ness to make final decisions. It means purity, straightfor-
wardness, candor, and simplicity of character; it means stand-
ing superior to the utilitarian complexities of mere "tactics."

Prudence is, as Paul Claudel says, the "intelligent prow" of
our nature which steers through the multiplicity of the finite
world toward perfection.

In the virtue of prudence the ring of the active life is
rounded out and closed, is completed and perfected; for man,
drawing on his experience of reality, acts in and upon reality,
thus realizing himself in decision and in act. The profundity of
this concept is expressed in the strange statement of Thomas
Aquinas that in prudence, the commanding virtue of the "con-
duct" of life, the happiness of active life is essentially com-
prised.

Prudence is that illumination of moral existence which, ac-
cording to one of the wisest books of the East, is a thing
denied to every man who "looks at himself."

There is a gloomy type of resoluteness, and a bright type.
Prudence is the brightness of the resoluteness of that man who
"acts truth" (John 3, 2 1).

22

5. Delimitations and Contrasts

THE CLASSICAL Christian doctrine of the meaning and
the rank of prudence is clearly opposed to all varieties of
irrationalism and voluntarism. We need scarcely waste a word
on this matter.

Man's free and responsible actions derive their form, if they
are "right" and good, not from the darkness but from the
light. "The first thing that is demanded of an active man is that
he know." But knowing implies that reality stands, bright and
clear, in the human mind. "The good presupposes the true."
And truth is the contrary of all obscuring darkness; it means
"to be manifest."

On the other hand, we read elsewhere: "The first act of the
will is not due to the direction of reason, but to the instigation
of nature or of a higher cause." The bright realm of free
human action, dominated by knowledge, is bordered on all
sides by darkness, by the darkness of nature's part within our-
selves and by the deeper, impenetrable darkness of the immedi-
ate divine governance of our volition and our actions. These
two realms are dark only to us; in reality they are irradiated
by the infinite brightness of divine knowledge and providence.
Of this brightness the Holy Scriptures say that it is an "unap-
proachable light" (I Tim. 6, 15). And Aristotle declares that
our reason compares to it "as the eye of night birds to the
light of the day."

Moreover, the truth is the good of our knowing mind, upon
which the mind fixes itself by nature; it is not granted to the

23

PRUDENCE

mind to choose or not to choose that good (truth!) on the
basis, again, of knowledge. The finite mind does not compre-
hend itself so profoundly, and does not have such power over
itself, that it follows only its own light. Nor does it stand in a
superior manner above real things, like a general holding in-
spection. Rather, it is by nature driven and compelled to know
the truth of real things. This drive, which it is beyond the
power of reason to oppose, proceeds along a path encom-
passed by that dark light which always girds and hems the
bright outline of our autonomous freedom.

Nevertheless, for this area of free activity the principle re-
mains that: Bomm hominis est "secundum rationem esse"
The good of man consists in being in accord with reason.
Once more we must add what cannot be said too often: that
here the word "reason" comprises all modes of perceiving real-
ity, and that above all the "reason" of Christians perceives also
the realities of faith.

There is a type of moral preaching closely akin to volun-
tarism, but held by many to be particularly "Christian," which
interprets man's moral activity as the sum of isolated usages,
practices of virtue and omissions. This misinterpretation has as
its unfortunate result the separation of moral action from its
roots in the cognition of reality and from the living existences
of living human beings. The preachers of such "moralism" do
not know or do not want to know but more especially they
keep others from knowing that the good, which alone is in
accord with the nature of man and of reality, shines forth only
in prudence. Prudence alone, that is, accords with reality.
Hence, we do not achieve the good by slavishly and literally
following certain prescriptions which have been blindly and
arbitrarily set forth. Such moralists would be utterly baffled
by the following sentence of Thomas Aquinas: "If there were
temperance in the sensual appetite and there were not pru-
dence in the reason, then the temperance would not be a

Delimitations and Contrasts

virtue"; or the similar assertion of Gregory the Great: "If the
other virtues did not accomplish their ends with prudence,
they can in no wise be virtues." Now prudence means, as we
have already stated many times, nothing less than the directing
cognition of reality. Out of this cognition good acts are
"born"; otherwise they are not born at all. The decisions of
prudence embody the duties enforced on us by things as they
are; in these decisions true cognition of reality is perfected for
the purpose of realizing the good.

Man's good actions take place in confrontation with reality.
The goodness of concrete human action rests upon the trans-
formation of the truth of real things; of the truth which must
be won and perceived by regarding the ipsa res, reality itself.

Now, the realities which surround man's concrete activity
are of an almost infinite variety, quasi infinitae diversitatis.
And above all man himself in this distinguishing himself from
animals is "a being of manifold and diverse activities; pre-
cisely by virtue of its rank in the order of being is the soul of
man directed toward infinite variety."

Since this is so, "the good of man changes in multifold fash-
ion, according to the various conditions of men and the times
and places, and similar factors." However, the goals of human
action do not change, nor do man's basic directions. For every
"condition" of man, at all times and places, he is under obliga-
tion to be just and brave and temperate.

Yet the specific ways of accomplishing this unchanging
obligation may take a thousand different forms. Of justice, of
fortitude, and of temperance this is true: "Each of these is
accomplished in various ways, and not in the same way for
all." In the Summa Theologica we read: "But the means to the
end, in human concerns, far from being fixed, are of manifold
variety according to the variety of persons and affairs."

It must, however, be noted that Thomas, speaking of the per-
formance of man's proper duties to be just (in which category

PRUDENCE

falls his obedience to the laws of Church and State), remarks
that these in particular are most independent of changes in
situations and are therefore most likely to be fixed once and
for all.

Out of the very human desire to secure and comprehend, to
determine, limit, and fix precisely, there arose almost of neces-
sity man's efforts to "order 77 the limitless variety of modes for
achieving the good, to render it surveyable by the longitudes
and latitudes of abstract rational measurement. One result of
this effort is casuistry, which is the branch and often the
main trunk of ethics which has as its aim the construction,
analysis, and evaluation of individual "cases."

It is all too easy to favor a certain vagueness and recklessness
in concrete ethical decisions and to smile in one's sleeve at
casuistry especially if one has never been confronted with
the necessity of judging the concrete ethical actions of actual
human beings from a judgment seat, as it were. (It is no acci-
dent that casuistry derives from the practice of law, nor that it
was originally meant as an aid for confessors.)

Nevertheless, casuistry presents its own kind of peril, owing
to that persistent human desire to achieve security. The
difficulty is not that no ultimate fulfillment can bless this
earthly state of ours, since it is a state of being-on-the-way. It
is rather that the striving for certainty and security can gravi-
tate, by virtue of its own direction and its natural inclination,
into the degenerate, anti-natural state of nonhuman rigidity.
Indeed, this danger is all the greater the more powerfully the
desire for certainty is concerned with the decision-making cen-
ter of the spiritual person.

Casuistry falls into this trap the very moment it claims to be
more than a (probably indispensable) makeshift, an aid for
sharpening judgment, a technique for temporary approxima-
tion, and more than the manipulation of a lifeless model. Any-

26

Delimitations and Contrasts

one who mistook the artificial coloring of this model for the
flesh and blood of reality itself would deceive himself far
more, and far more dangerously, than would a young doctor,
say, who thought the models and mechanisms of his classroom
represented absolute standards for the diagnosis and treatment
of real diseases.

Casuistry, then, must be regarded as no more than a highly
useful, and probably necessary, aid; certainly not as an abso-
lute standard for making ethical judgments and performing
concrete ethical actions. To confound model and reality, to
put too great a valuation on casuistry, is equivalent to
misunderstanding the meaning and rank of the virtue of pru-
dence. It is again no coincidence that casuistry has usurped a
greater and greater place in moral theology the more that the
classical Christian doctrine of prudence has been thrust into
the background and has fallen into oblivion. The complexion
of a number of popular textbooks on moral theology, written
during the (very slowly vanishing) nineteenth century, makes
the state of affairs abundantly clear: that along with the doc-
trine of the virtues in general, comprehension of the nature
and supremacy of the first cardinal virtue had been lost. Yet
this very understanding was central to the ethics of Thomas
Aquinas, and kept it free of that embarrassing, excitable, omnis-
cient, and all-intruding pedantry, that constant proliferation of
warnings and interdictions. The doctrine of the pre-eminence
of prudence lays the ground for the manly and noble attitude
of restraint, freedom, and affirmation which marks the moral
theology of the "universal teacher" of the Church.

The immediate criterion for concrete ethical action is solely
the imperative of prudence in the person who has the decision
to make. This standard cannot be abstractly construed or even
calculated in advance; abstractly here means: outside the par-
ticular situation. The imperative of prudence is always and in
essence a decision regarding an action to be performed in the

PRUDENCE

"here and now." By their very nature such decisions can be
made only by the person confronted with decision. No one
can be deputized to make them. No one else can make them in
his stead. Similarly, no one can be deputized to take the re-
sponsibility which is the inseparable companion of decision.
No one else can assume this burden. The strict specificity of
ethical action is perceptible only to the living experience of
the person required to decide. He alone has access to the total-
ity of singularia circa quae sunt operaiiones, that is to say, to
the totality of concrete realities which surround the concrete
action, to the "state" of the person himself and the condition
of the here and the now.

The statements of moral theology, including those of casuis-
try, necessarily remain general. They can never take hold of a
real and whole "here and now" for the reason that only the
person really engaged in decision experiences (or at least can
experience) the concrete situation with its need for concrete
action. He alone. This is not to deny that casuistic reasoning
can more or less approach the real situation in which decision
is called for. It will come all the closer, the more it deals with
the attainment of justice. Nevertheless, real concreteness re-
mains accessible only to immediate, the most immediate, expe-
rience. Thus all the knowledge of casuists, and the knowledge
of moral theology in general, by no means suffice to guarantee
the goodness of a concrete action. No matter how much moral
theology "goes into details," such wisdom alone does not make
a man "prudent" in the sense of the first cardinal virtue. And
any moral theology becomes truer and more genuine, and
above all more capable of dealing with life, the more it ex-
pressly renounces such a claim. The guarantee of the goodness
of concrete human action is given solely by the virtue of pru-
dence. It is exclusively the business of prudence "to form a
right judgment concerning individual acts, exactly as they are
to be done here and now."

28

Delimitations and Contrasts

There is no way of grasping the concreteness of a man's
ethical decisions from outside. But no, there is a certain way, a
single way: that is through the love of friendship. A friend,
and a prudent friend, can help to shape a friend's decision. He
does so by virtue of that love which makes the friend's prob-
lem his own, the friend's ego his own (so that after all it is not
entirely "from outside"). For by virtue of that oneness which
love can establish he is able to visualize the concrete situation
calling for decision, visualize it from, as it were, the actual
center of responsibility. Therefore it is possible for a friend
only for a friend and only for a prudent friend to help with
counsel and direction to shape a friend's decision or, somewhat
in the manner of a judge, help to reshape it.

Such genuine and prudent loving friendship (amor
amicitiae) which has nothing in common with sentimental
intimacy, and indeed is rather imperiled by such intimacy is
the sine qua non for genuine spiritual guidance. For only this
empowers another to offer the kind of direction which al-
most! conforms to the concrete situation in which the deci-
sion must be made.

Human activity has two basic forms: doing (agere) and
making (facere). Artifacts, technical and artistic, are the
"works" of making. We ourselves are the "works" of doing.

And prudence is the perfection, of the ability to do, whereas
"art" (in St, Thomas's sense) is perfection of the ability to
make. "Art" is the "right reason" of making (recta ratio facti-
bilhm)\ prudence is the "right reason" of doing (recto ratio
agibiliwn).

The exaggerated importance given to casuistry stems in
large part from disregard of this distinction between prudence
and the technique of "art," the distinction between doing and
making, between deeds and works.

The ethical deeds of man are not more or less fixed manual
techniques, whose end is the shaping of some work, but steps

PRUDENCE

toward self-realization. The human self, which grows toward
perfection by accomplishing the good, is a "work" that sur-
passes all preconceived blueprints based upon man's own cal-
culations. Ethical growth takes place in the course of our re-
plies, appropriate to each given case, to the reality outside us
which is not made by ourselves. The essence of that reality is
the ever-changing diversity of growth and decay, not perma-
nent being (only God is who He is). This reply appropriate
to each given case can be given only by the virtue of prudence.
There is no "technique" of the good, no "technique" of perfec-
tion. "Casuistry, on the contrary, carried to excess, substitutes
techniques and prescriptions for the infinite suppleness which
the virtue of prudence must retain in the face of the complexi-
ties of the ethical life," as we read in a French commentary to
the Summa Theologicct.

The man who does good follows the lines of an architectural
plan which has not been conceived by himself and which he
does not understand as a whole, nor in all of its parts. This
architectural plan is revealed to man from moment to moment.
In each case he sees only a tiny segment of it, as through a
narrow crack. Never, so long as he is in the state of "being-on-
the-way," will the concrete architectural plan of his own self
become visible to him in its rounded and final shape.

Paul Claudel defines conscience which, as we have said,
is in a certain sense equivalent to prudence itself as "the pa-
tient beacon which does not delineate the future, but only the
immediate."

A moral theology which relies too much upon casuistry
necessarily becomes a "science of sins" instead of a doctrine of
virtues, or a theory of the Christian idea of man. It soon be-
comes reduced to an endless determining of the boundary be-
yond which sins are "mortal" and this side of which sins are
"venial." If such a casuistic doctrine of sin is combined with
the moralism of isolated "observances" and "abstentions" and

Delimitations and Contrasts

it is indeed akin to this moralism there arises that phenome-
non (which was, after all, not completely invented by
Nietzsche) of a rather vindictive and insubstantial nay-saying
which serves at best to prey upon the consciences of the imma-
ture, but is of no use as a standard for real life.

A merely casuistic moral theology assumes the immaturity of
human beings. Moreover, it intensifies and perpetuates this im-
maturity. "Once we have arrived at casuistry, the next conse-
quence is that decisions in questions of conscience are lifted
from the conscience of the individual and transferred to the
authority of the experts" (Linsenmann) .

The virtue of prudence, on the contrary being the per-
fected ability to make decisions in accordance with reality is
the quintessence of ethical maturity (of which, of course,
teachability is a great component). And the pre-eminence of
prudence over justice, fortitude, and temperance means simply
that without maturity truly moral life and action is not possi-
ble.

If, then, prudence is truly the mold and mother of all moral
virtue, then it is likewise true that it is impossible to educate a
person to justice, fortitude, and temperance without first and
simultaneously educating him to prudence. And education to
prudence means: to objective estimation of the concrete
situation of concrete activity, and to the ability to transform
this cognition of reality into concrete decision.

The classical Christian doctrine of the pre-eminence of the
virtue of prudence is essentially opposed to all falsifying,
moralistic, or casuistic regimentation of the person who is
called upon to make decisions.

The first of the cardinal virtues is not only the quintessence
of ethical maturity, but in so being is also the quintessence of
moral freedom.

4. Prudence and Charity

"NO MORAL VIRTUE is possible without prudence." But
in contrast to this we read: "Without the moral virtues there is
no prudence." Both these sentences are to be found in Thomas
Aquinas's treatises on prudence. Only the prudent man, then,
can be just, brave, and temperate; yet he who is not already
just, brave, and temperate cannot be prudent.

How can the first sentence be compatible with the second,
which seems to run counter to it?

A vague reply that both are simultaneously possible is not
uncommon, but is no more satisfactory than the other explica-
tion we hear frequently: that these sentences are meant to
convey the idea that the ethical life is "organic" and consti-
tutes a closed circulatory system. Such exegesis wrongs the
clarity of outline and the precision which is peculiar to the
thinking of the "universal teacher." Either prudence gives rise
to the moral virtues, or these virtues engender prudence; both
statements cannot be true and real in one and the same sense.
When the snake curls itself into a ring, it is always the head
that bites the tail, not vice versa. Thus the "both are simulta-
neously possible" and the "closed circulatory system" are fun-
damentally non-sense, mere subterfuges for thinking that lacks
decisiveness and exactitude.

It is not the purpose or the business of the virtue of pru-
dence to discover the goals, or rather the goal, of life, and to
determine the fundamental inclinations of the human being.
Rather, the purpose of prudence is to determine the proper

32

Prudence and Charity

roads to that goal and the suitable outlet in the here and now
for those fundamental inclinations.

To know the ultimate goals of one's own life is not and
cannot be the fruit of an ability still to be acquired and per-
fected in this very "life." The goals are present. No one is
ignorant of the fact that he must love the good and accomplish
it. Everyone knows expressly or not that the good most
characteristic of the nature of man is "to be according to
reason" that is, to be according to the reality which man
himself is and which surrounds him. And there is no one who
needs to be told that he ought to be just and brave and
temperate. This is self-evident, and calls for no deliberation.
The reflections and the conclusions of prudence are directed
solely toward the actual realization of justice, fortitude, and
temperance.

This concrete realization, however, could not do justice to
reality, and above all could not be satisfactorily consummated,
if conscious affirmation of the goal of man did not precede the
efforts of prudence. That is to say, there must precede the
affirmation of justice, fortitude, and temperance as the funda-
mental inclinations of man toward the accomplishment of the
"good characteristic of his nature," of "being according to
reason." Without desire for the good in general, all efforts to
discover what is prudent and good here and now remain
empty bustle and self-deception. The virtue of prudence pre-
sumes real seeking of the goal of man, the intentio finis. It
therefore not only presupposes the voice of the natural con-
science ("synderesis"), as we have said several times, but also
the response of the will to this imperative pronouncement:
primal affirmation of the good as the aim of all of one's
actions. This primal affirmation, however, is nothing less than
the fundamental attitude of the just, brave, and temperate man
that is to say, of the good man.

Moral virtue, in so far as it signifies that basic attitude of
voluntary affirmation of the good, is the fundament and pre-
35

PRUDENCE

condition of prudence. But prudence in turn is the prerequi-
site for the appropriate realization in the here and now of that
same basic attitude; the prerequisite for its effectuality. Only
one who previously and simultaneously loves and 'wants the
good can be prudent; but only one who is previously prudent
can do good. Since, however, love of the good in its turn
grows by doing good, the foundations of prudence are sunk
deeper and firmer to the extent that prudence bears fruit in
action.

(The original desire for the good takes its energy from the
ever-pulsating momentum of that Origin in which man, an-
swering the creative call of God, flew across the abyss which
parts nothingness from existence. It is the moment with which
the possible bursts with a roar into the radiant dawn of its first
realization: the swift current of a stream that originating in the
bright darkness of mere Nature and steadily fed by its source,
crosses by the dictates of innate conscience into the realm of
freedom.)

In concrete moral action cognition and will are interwoven
into oneness. Both strands have their beginnings far beyond
the narrow realm of self-understanding. And the "pattern" as
well as the rule which governs their weaving into a fabric very
soon passes beyond the range of man's vision. Yet this may be
said: that the contribution which cognition and decision bring
to the concrete moral act is quite different in nature from the
contribution of the will. The realization of the good presumes
both voluntary affirmation of the good and the decisions of
prudence; but both have an entirely different relationship to
the concrete good activity of man. Prudent decision is the
"measure" of a concrete moral act. That is to say, the act
receives from prudent decision its content, its nature, its es-
sence, its inner truth and tightness. On the other hand, man's
concrete moral actions receive their existence, their being,

34

Prudence and Charity

their real goodness, from the will's power of realization. "Mak-
ing existent" is the special and the only function of volition.

This again casts light on the statement that prudence is de-
pendent upon volitional affirmation of the good as man's goal
This is not to say that the content of a prudent decision is
directly determined or determinable by volition and derives its
substance from the will. The content of prudent decision is,
rather, determined by the ipsa res, by reality, which is the
"measure" of all cognition and decision. Desiring the good
does not make a decision prudent; but real understanding and
proper evaluation of the concrete situation of the concrete act
does. Not voluntary affirmation of the goal, not the intentio
finis, is the "measure" of a prudent decision. But, on the other
hand, the volitional affirmation of the good "makes existent"
the prudent decision, so that this decision, effectively, may
obtain its contentual Tightness from true cognition of reality.
The will can never determine, never produce, the contentual
truth of cognition and decision, and therefore can never deter-
mine or produce the quality of good action. (And on the
other hand, no cognition, no matter how true, and no decision,
no matter how prudent, will by itself suffice for the actual
achievement of the good.) But the authenticity of the desire
for the goal clears the way for truth, so that truth can imprint
upon will and action the seal of justness to the nature of
things. An unjust will, on the other hand, prevents the truth of
real things from determining the actions of man. There are
depths of meaning not easily grasped in the sentence in the
Epistle to the Romans that truth is held captive in the fetters
of injustice (Rom. i, 18).

"Human acts are good in that they correspond to the right
standard of human action. Now there is a right standard
proper to the human species and peculiar to man's nature,
namely right reason; and there is another, supreme and surpass-

35

PRUDENCE

ing standard, which is God. Man attains right reason in pru-
dence, which is right reason in the realm of action. But man
attains God in charity."

"Prudence is called the form of all the moral virtues. But the
act of virtue thus established in the mean is, as it were, material
in regard to the ordination to the last end. This order is con-
ferred upon the act of virtue by the command of charity. In
this sense charity is said to be the form of all the other
virtues."

It is, alas, only too easy for the superficial reader to float
along on the unruffled surface of these statements of Thomas
Aquinas, which seem transparent to the very bottom, and take
no account of the depths over which their serene clarity lies.

Very often the proposition about nature presupposed and
perfected by grace is cited as a self-evident "explanation." But
the fact is that this expresses an almost impenetrable mystery.
Moreover, the dictum primarily concerns the domain of gener-
alities and essences, not that of immediate and concrete exist-
ence. More exactly, the accord of the natural order with the
new life of friendship with God must not be construed in the
sense that it is immediately "given" or realizable in smooth and
"harmonious" development. We do, to be sure, incline to think
in terms of such harmonies from long habit. But the writings
of the great friends of God make plain, on almost every page,
that the actual life of the Christian is ruled by a different kind
of structural law; that life on earth, which has "not yet" at-
tained the peace of concord, the concrete combination of the
natural and the supernatural, is subjected to all sorts of liabili-
ties to contradiction and disharmony.

Yet it is not true that the greatest liabilities of such a discord
lie in the lowest realm of the natural life in, say, the resist-
ance of the sensual natural will to supernatural duty. Rather,
the peril is most present in the confrontation of the highest

36

Prudence and Charity

natural virtue and the highest theological virtue, that is to say,
in the connection of natural prudence and supernatural
charity. It is not the "sinners" but the "prudent ones" who are
most liable to close themselves off from the new life which has
been given by grace, and to oppose it. Typically, natural pru-
dence courts this danger by tending to restrict the realm of
determinative factors of our actions to naturally expe-
rienceable realities. Christian prudence, however, means pre-
cisely the throwing open of this realm and (in faith informed
by love) the inclusion of new and invisible realities within the
determinants of our decisions.

It need scarcely be said that, on the other hand, the highest
and most fruitful achievements of Christian life depend upon
the felicitous collaboration of prudence and charity.

This collaboration is linked to the pre-eminence of charity
over prudence. Prudence is the mold of the moral virtues; but
charity molds even prudence itself. How this molding of pru-
dence by charity takes place in practice can scarcely be stated,
for charity, being participation by grace in the life of the
Trinitarian God, is in essence a gift ultimately beyond the
power of man's will or reason to bestow. It is an event un-
fathomable in any natural way, which takes place when the
three theological virtues are "infused" into our being. This,
however, is certain: that all our works and being are elevated
by charity to a plane which is otherwise unattainable and ut-
terly inaccessible. For that reason, too, supernatural divine love
which molds the decisions of the Christian indubitably means
something far more than and far different from a mere addi-
tional "higher motivation" in the psychological sense. The di-
vine love conferred by grace shapes from the ground up and
throughout the innermost core of the most commonplace
moral action of a Christian, even though that action may be
"outwardly" without special distinguishing characteristics. It

31

PRUDENCE

does so, however, in a manner that lies outside the range of
ordinary psychological experience-possibilities.

In proportion to the growth of the theological virtue of love
there unfolds in the man who has received grace the sevenfold
gift of the Holy Spirit; in the same proportion human pru-
dence receives, more tangibly and more audibly, the aid of the
"gift of counsel," donum consilii. "The gift of counsel corre-
sponds to prudence, helping and perfecting it." "The human
mind, from the very fact that it is directed by the Holy Spirit,
is enabled to direct itself and others."

But: "In the gift of the Holy Spirit, the position of the
human mind is of one moved rather than of a mover." And
therefore here, too, there can be no question of how and how
much. It would, after all, be absurd arrogance to attempt to
discover the "rules" by which the Holy Spirit of God per-
meates man's reflections and decisions. We can at most say that
the quasi-infinite variety of choices which operate in the realm
of natural prudence and make any general and abstract pre-
determination possible, must be multiplied by an utterly new
infinity in the supernatural order. This emerges clearly when
we recall how incomparable and unique the life of every single
saint is. Here, then, is the truest applicability of the dictum of
Augustine: "Have love, and do what you will."

In the Summa Theologica we learn that upon a higher plane
of perfection, that is the plane of charity, there is also a higher
and extraordinary prudence which holds as nought all the
things of this world.

Does this not run completely counter to all that the "univer-
sal teacher" has said elsewhere about the nature of the first
cardinal virtue? Is holding created things as nought not the
exact opposite of that reverent objectivity which in the con-
crete situation of concrete action must attempt to recognize
the "measure" of that action?

38

Prudence and Charity

Things are nought only before God, who created them and
in whose hand they are as clay in the hand of the potter. By
the superhuman force of grace-given love, however, man may
become one with God to such an extent that he receives, so to
speak, the capacity and the right to see created things from
God's point of view and to "relativize" them and see them as
nought from God's point of view, without at the same time
repudiating them or doing injustice to their nature. Growth in
love is the legitimate avenue and the one and only justification
for "contempt for the world."

Unlike this contempt which arises out of growth in love, all
contempt for the world which springs from man's own judg-
ment and opinions, not from the supernatural love of God, is
simple arrogance, hostile to the nature of being; it is a form of
pride in that it refuses to recognize the ordinary obligations
which are made visible to man in created things. Only that
closer union with the being of God which is nourished by love
raises the blessed man beyond immediate involvement in
created things.

At this point in our argument we approach a limit. Beyond
that limit only the experience of the saints can offer any valid
knowledge, any valid comment. We would only remind our
readers how intensely the great saints loved the ordinary and
commonplace, and how anxious they were lest they might
have been deceived into regarding their own hidden craving
for the "extraordinary" as a "counsel" of the Holy Spirit of
God.

But even in that higher and extraordinary form of prudence
which holds the world in contempt, there reigns unrestrictedly
the same fundamental attitude upon which ordinary prudence
entirely depends: the fundamental attitude of justice toward
the being of things and correspondence to reality.

The eye of perfected friendship with God is aware of
deeper dimensions of reality, to which the eyes of the average

39

PRUDENCE

man and the average Christian are not yet opened. To those
who have this greater love of God the truth of real things is
revealed more plainly and more brilliantly; above all the super-
natural reality of the Trinitarian God is made known to them
more movingly and overwhelmingly.

Even supreme supernatural prudence, however, can have
only the following aim: to make the more deeply felt truth of
the reality of God and world the measure for will and action.
Man can have no other standard and signpost than things as
they are and the truth which makes manifest things as they
are; and there can be no higher standard than the God who is
and His truth.

And of the man who "acts truth" the Holy Scriptures (John
3, 21) tell us that he "comes to the light."

JUSTICE

"Justice is destroyed in twofold fashion:

by the false prudence of the sage and by the

violent act of the man who possesses power"

ST. THOMAS, On the Book of Job [8, i ].

L On Rights

AMONG ALL the things that preoccupy us today, there
seem to be few that are not connected with justice in a very
intimate fashion. A survey of current problems reveals this
clearly. There is, first and foremost, one of the most urgent
concerns of our times: How can genuine authority be once
more established in the world? There are the problems of "hu-
man rights," of a "just war" and war crimes, of responsibility
in the face of unjust commands; the right of opposition against
unlawful authority; capital punishment, dueling, political
strikes, equality of rights for women. Every one of these issues
is, as we all know, controversial. And each one has an immedi-
ate connection with the notion of justice.

Over and above that, however, anyone who judges the reali-
ties encountered in everyday life by the standard of "justice"
will clearly see that evil and suffering in our world have many
names, but primarily that of "injustice." "Man's greatest and
most frequent troubles depend on man's injustice more than on
adversity" (Kant). Consequently, when Aristotle undertakes to
explain the distinctive and fundamental forms of justice, he
expressly starts from what is our most familiar experience, and
that is injustice. "The many forms of injustice make the many
forms of justice quite clear," he says.

All that is true, yet whenever "justice" is analyzed, so vast a
multitude of meanings come to mind that it is quite impossible
to master them. Nevertheless there is a notion of the utmost
simplicity to which that bewildering variety can be reduced.

43

JUSTICE

Indeed, Plato already mentions it as if It were handed down by
long tradition. It is the notion that each man is to be given
what is his due.

All just order in the world is based on this: that man give
man what is his due. On the other hand, everything unjust
implies that what belongs to a man is withheld or taken away
from him and, once more, not by misfortune, failure of
crops, fire or earthquake, but by man.

This notion, then, the notion of the "suum cuique" which
ever since the very earliest times became the common posses-
sion of the Western tradition through Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,
Ambrose, Augustine, and, above all, Roman kw, will have to
be discussed in what follows. More precisely, the discussion
will have to be about the intentional habit that enables man to
give to each one what is his. In a word, the virtue of justice
must be investigated.

"Justice is a habit (habitus), whereby a man renders to each
one his due with constant and perpetual will."

There are, of course, other definitions of justice in the West-
ern tradition, too. In Thomas himself there are several kinds of
definition each with a different ring to it. Thus, in one place
he says that justice is that whereby what is one's own is dis-
tinct from what belongs to a stranger; or again: it is properly
the mark of justice to establish order among things. Augustine
has likewise spoken of the virtue of justice in many different
ways. A particular luster attaches to the following for-
mulation: "Justice is that ordering of the soul by virtue of
which it comes to pass that we are no man's servant, but serv-
ants of God alone." Yet such statements are hardly intended to
be proper definitions of the term. That is true only of the

statement already quoted the most sober and factual of all

which says: Justice is the virtue which enables man to give to
each one what is his due.

I have just said that this idea is an extremely simple one. But
that does not imply that its meaning is easily grasped and, as it

44

On Rights

were, without paying any price. For what, in fact, is each
man's due? And above all, what is, generally speaking, the basis
for a "JWWTW"? How does anything come to belong to a person,
anyway? And how does it so truly belong to him that every
man and every human authority has to grant it to him and
allow him to keep it?

Perhaps as a consequence of what has happened throughout
the world during the past decades and is still happening we
are now newly gifted to see what is properly involved in such
a fundamental consideration. The answer is no longer self-evi-
dent; the most extreme formulations and realizations, too of
absolute untruth have come to the fore; and thus the deepest
foundations of truth are once more called in question because
they are expressly attacked. It is therefore opportune and,
indeed, necessary to think these matters through in a new and
more radical fashion.

"If the act of justice is to give to each man his due, then the
act of justice is preceded by the act whereby something be-
comes his due." This text expresses with supreme simplicity a
circumstance that is utterly fundamental. Justice is something
that comes second: right comes before justice. If something is
due to a man as his own, the fact of its being due to him has
not come into existence through justice. "That act, by virtue
of which something comes for the first time to be due to a
man as his, cannot be an act of justice."

Let us take an example. One man does a job for another; let
us say he digs his garden for him. (For the purpose of our
example, we assume that in performing this task he is not
fulfilling a previous obligation.) By his digging, something due
to him has come into being. By reason of something that he
has done, something is now due to him. And that other man
must give him his due. Now this act of giving is an act of
justice, and it has as its condition, then, the fact that something
is due to his neighbor.

Everyone is aware, however, that there are rights which do

JUSTICE

not arise out of one's work; in other words, that man has a
right to some things as his due, w r hich has no basis in any
action of his. No one, for example, doubts that a man has a
right to his own life.

Now the question that arises in this connection goes deeper.
It also embraces the claim based on the performance of a task:
for what reason is "recompense" due a man for work done?
What is the basis of this obligation? What, in the final analysis,
is "the act whereby for each man something becomes his
due"?

"It is through creation that the created being first comes to
have his rights." By virtue of creation first arises the possibility
of saying: "Something is my due." This may sound rather
obvious. But on the basis of it Thomas draws this surprising
but compelling conclusion: "Therefore, creation itself is not
an act of justice; creation is not anyone's due." This means
that in the relationship of God to man, there cannot be justice
in the strict sense of reddere suwn cuique: God owes man
nothing. "And although God in this way pays each thing its
due, yet He Himself is not the debtor." This is surely a new
theme. And it is something we shall have to discuss.

At this juncture it must be made clear that no obligation to
do justice exists unless it has as its presupposition this idea of
the due, the right, the suum. That is the meaning of the prop-
osition: "Now the Just is the object of justice." I must confess
that it took me a number of years to grasp this point and
realize it fully. Only then did I understand, and for the first
time, why in the Summa Theologica a question, "On Right,"
issuing from the systematic order that preceded it, came be-
fore the treatise on justice.

So if, to the question: "How does man come to have his
due," we give the answer: "By reason of creation," we have
already said a good deal Yet we have still not said the last

46

On Rights

word. The question has still not been given an answer in for-
mal terms.

For stones, plants, and animals have also been created, yet
we cannot say that they have their due in the strict sense of
the word. For "being due" means something like belonging to
or being the property of someone. A nonspiritual being, how-
ever, cannot properly have anything belonging to it; on the
contrary it, itself, belongs to someone else, for instance, to
man.

The concept of "being due to," of "right," is such a primor-
dial idea that it cannot be traced back to a prior, subordinating
concept. That is to say, it can at best be described, but not
defined. We can perhaps say this: Whatever is due to a person,
the suum, is something that one man may demand of another
as owing to him, and him only. And what is thus owing can
just as well be a thing, perhaps a possession, as an action and,
indeed, not only a private action, such as not being hindered in
one's private actions (be it speaking, writing, marrying, or
going to church), but it can also be an act performed by
another, or even the cessation of such an act anything, for
instance, that might be annoying, embarrassing, or compro-
mising to a person's good name.

Yet the question persists: On what basis does a man have his
due in such a way that it is his inalienable possession? We have
nowadays become so accustomed to thinking in the categories
of despotism that the great word "inalienable" almost makes us
smile. This or that "inalienably" belongs to me! What can such
a claim really mean? There is another, more forceful, way of
stating the case. That something belongs to a man inalienably
means this: the man who does not give a person what belongs
to him, withholds it or deprives him of it, is really doing harm
to himself; he is the one who actually loses something indeed,
in the most extreme case, he even destroys himself. At all
events, something incomparably worse befalls him than hap-

47

JUSTICE

pens to the one who suffers an injustice: that is how inviolable
the right is! That is how strongly the inalienability of the right
asserts itself! Socrates has formulated this point over and over
again the person who does an injustice is "to be pitied": "But
as to my own view, though it has often been expressed
akeady, there is no harm in my expressing it once more. I
maintain, Callicles, that it is not die most shameful of things to
be wrongfully boxed on the ears, nor again to have either my
purse or my person cut . . . any wrong done to me and mine
is at once more shameful and worse for the wrongdoer than
for me the sufferer." Expressions such as this should not be
construed as simply heroic hyperbole; they are meant as a
very precise description of the condition that justice belongs
to man's true being. All these statements are sober characteriza-
tions of a real state of affairs: "the inalienability of right."

What is the basis, then, upon which something comes to be
the inalienable due of a person the presupposition of justice?
First of all, the issue might be skirted by giving a less radical
answer and saying that a due can arise in many different ways;
even Thomas has given such an answer. He says: On the one
hand a thing might be due to a man on the basis of agreements,
treaties, promises, legal decisions, and so on; on the other hand,
it might be due to him on the basis of the nature of the thing,
ex ipsa natwa rei ("and this is called natural right, iu$ naturale";
this is the point where the extremely complicated concept of
"natural law" is anticipated). It is true, Thomas adds a remark
of the utmost importance to this distinction: it is not exclusive;
only on the assumption that the agreement between men, pri-
vate or public, does not run counter to "the nature of things"
may a settlement be the basis for an obligation to a person, that
is, of a right. "If, however, a thing of itself is contrary to
natural right, the human will cannot make it just."

This is a further help in formulating our question still the
same one more precisely: something can truly come to be

On Eights

due to me by mere agreement, for instance through a promise;
so much so that a person acts against justice and is therefore to
be pitied and injures himself, if he withholds it from me. On
what, then, does the inalienability, even of this obligation, rest?

It is based, we must reply, on the nature of him to whom
the obligation is due. There can be an obligation, in the fullest
sense of the term, invulnerable and inalienable, only if the
bearer of this mum is of such a kind that he can claim what is
due to him as his right. At this point language seems only to
complicate the matter and to have reached the limits of its
power to express meaning clearly. This is perfectly natural
and we cannot expect anything else. That is what happens
when we try to make a primordial and therefore self-evident
concept more intelligible.

Let us take a fictitious example: Suppose I promise my dog
something. Let us assume that a sort of customary "right" had
been established, that for a certain act the dog should get a
reward, with the result that the dog "rightfully" considers it to
be something due to him; on my part, let us suppose that I
have expressly decided to reward the animal regularly in some
definite way. If I were to omit doing so just once, I would, of
course, be inattentive, inconstant, forgetful. But in no way
would I be unjust in the proper sense. Why not? Because
nothing can be inalienably due to a brute; because the presup-
position of justice, as well as of injustice namely, that a
"right" in the full sense exists on the side of the other party-
does not obtain.

This implies, on the other hand, that we cannot state the
basis of a right and, hence, of a judicial obligation, unless we
have a concept of man, of human nature. But what if it is
claimed that there is, absolutely speaking, no human nature
"i/ riy a fas de nature humaine"^ This is, in truth, the formal
justification for every exercise of totalitarian power even
though such a connection may not have entered the head of

49

JUSTICE

Jean Paul Sartre, who originated this existentialist thesis. If,
then, there is no human nature on the basis of which alone there
is an inalienable obligation to man, how can we escape the con-
sequence: Do whatever you think fit with man?

Man, however, is a person a spiritual being, a whole unto
himself, a being that exists for itself and of itself, that wills its
own proper perfection. Therefore, and for that very reason,
something is due to man in the fullest sense, for that reason he
does inalienably have a sicum, a "right" which he can plead
against everyone else, a right which imposes upon every one
of his partners the obligation at least not to violate it. Indeed,
man's personality, "the constitution of his spiritual being by
virtue of which he is master of his own actions," even requires
(requirit), says Thomas, that Divine Providence guide the per-
sonality "for his own sake." Moreover, he takes literally that
marvelous expression from the Book of Wisdom: Even God
Himself disposes of us "with great reverence" (citm magna
reverentia). In the same chapter of the Summa contra Gentiles
in which this statement occurs the concept of the personality
is set forth in all its elements: its freedom, imperishability, and
responsibility for the whole of the world. If, on the contrary,
man's personality is not acknowledged to be something wholly
and entirely real, then right and justice cannot possibly be
established.

Nevertheless, even establishing them in this way still does
not get at their deepest roots. For how can human nature be
the ultimate basis when it is not founded upon itself! At this
point we could certainly break off any further boring into the
depth. In "moderate" periods, in fact, there would be nothing
against it. When the most far-reaching denials of justice take
the stage, however, it is no longer enough to go back only to
penultimate roots. If man is treated as though simply nothing
were due to him as his right, as a swem not merely because

50

On Eights

the wielding of power has become brutalized, but rather on
the basis of a fully articulated theory at such a rime mere
reference to the person's freedom and to human rights will
obviously not carry us very far. This is simply part of the
experiences of our age. Something must be said of the deepest
roots of such rights. But more than words are needed. We
must learn to experience as reality the knowledge that the
establishment of right and justice has not received its fullest
and most valid legitimation until we have gone back to the
absolute foundation; and that there is no other way to make
the demands of justice effective as absolute bounds set the will
to power.

This means in concrete terms: Man has inalienable rights
because he is created a person by the act of God, that is, an act
beyond all human discussion. In the ultimate analysis, then,
something is inalienably due to man because he is creatura,
Moreover, as creatura y man has the absolute duty to give an-
other his due. Kant has expressed this in the following manner:
'We have a divine Sovereign, and his divine gift to man is
man's right."

Now a person may very well consider this to be true and
may even give it his unqualified consent, but he may neverthe-
less discover that he himself finds it difficult to draw the con-
clusion that man's right is unimpeachable because he is created
by God. Pious declamation on solemn occasions is not enough.
Fundamental truths must constantly be pondered anew lest
they lose their fruitfulness. In this lies the significance of med-
itation: that truth may not cease to be present and effective in
the active life. Perhaps when all the consequences of a false
presupposition suddenly become a direct threat, men in their
great terror will become aware that it is no longer possible to
call back to true and effective life a truth they have allowed to
become remote just for the sake of their bare survival.

Finally, it is no longer completely fantastic to think that a

5*

JUSTICE

day may come when not the executioners alone will deny the
existence of inalienable rights of men, but when even the vic-
tims will not be able to say why it is that they are suffering
injustice.

It has, I hope, become clear by now that we are not con-
cerned with some vague need for theological trimmings, or
with mere edification, but rather with the sober reflective will
not to shirk "embarrassing" conclusions and to carry the ques-
tion through to its ultimate meaning, the question, namely: On
what basis is something inalienably due to man, and for what
reason does justice first become thinkable and demonstrable as
a duty, the violation of which destroys man himself?

But this is not to say that man himself is not possessor and
bearer of his right, the suum. However true it is that the Crea-
tor in His Absoluteness is the ultimate foundation for the in-
alienability of man's rights, still man himself has dues rendered
him by all others (indeed he renders dues to all others in turn).
"A thing is just not only because it is willed by God, but
because it is a debt due to a created being by virtue of the
relationship between creature and creature."

This would seem to be the place to speak briefly about one
other presupposition of justice. A person may make no formal
denial that another should have his due. But he may say that
this is no concern of his; that as a man of action it is all the
same to him whether in the realm of objective truth one thing
goes or another. In other words, as Thomas says, the act of
justice not only presupposes that act through which a man
conies to have his due; it also presupposes the act of prudence,
which means that the truth of real things is transposed into a
decision.

It is only in terms of such a situation that it first becomes
possible to conceive of one form of injustice that is extremely
real, the kind of injustice that rests on man's having lost his
contact with truth. To him the question as to whether a man

On Eights

has his due or not is absolutely and utterly irrelevant. As a
result, something far more radically inhuman than formal injus-
tice comes to the fore; for human actions are properly human
because they have taken reality as their measure.

We have made clear that justice can be discussed meaning-
fully and fruitfully only if it is regarded in the context of a
complete moral doctrine. It is one feature in the sevenfold
image of man; the part becomes fully intelligible only within
the whole.

2. Duty in Relation to
"The Other"

"IT is PROPER to justice, as compared with the other
virtues, to direct man in his relations with others; . . * on the
other hand the other virtues perfect man only in those matters
which befit him in relation to himself." This text from the
Surmna Theologica has the very same meaning as the textbook
adage: "lustitia est ad altenmP Justice is directed toward the
other man. The difference, the separateness of the other party
is intended more precisely and literally than may appear at
first glance.

What distinguishes justice from love is just this: in the rela-
tionship of justice, men confront each other as separate
"others," almost as strangers. "Justice properly speaking de-
mands a distinction of parties." Because father and child are
not entirely separate individuals, because the child, instead,
belongs to the father, and the father feels toward the child
almost as he feels toward himself, "so between them there is
not a simpliciter iustum, the just, simply," not justice in the
strict sense. Because the loved one is not properly "someone
else," there is no formal justice between those who love each
other. To be just means to recognize the other as other\ it
means to give acknowledgment even where one cannot love.
Justice says: That is another person, who is other than I, and
who nevertheless has his own peculiar due. A just man is just,

54

Dwy in Relation to "The Other"

therefore, because he sanctions another person in his very sepa-
rateness and helps him to receive his due.

It is not superfluous, I think, to spell out every obvious stage
of the argument as we have done. For nowadays "liquidation"
is both concept and reality. Liquidation does not mean punish-
ment, subjugation, conquest, or even execution. Liquidation
means extermination merely on the basis of otherness. It would
be unrealistic not to see that this ferment: "Whoever is
different will be liquidated," works on like a poison, a constant
temptation to human thought, destroying or at least menacing
it.

That is why it is important to call even the elements of the
concept of justice by the right name. Only when we realize
what a challenge this concept presents to ordinary current
thinking, is it worth while to ponder it step by step.

Once we consider the theory of justice as a development of
the possibilities of human partnership, of men's relations to
"the other," one sign of the erosion and growing aridity of this
field in the contemporary human consciousness is the inability
of our living tongue to give names to all the various possible
violations of partnership enumerated and described in classical
Western moral doctrine. We may venture to assert that expres-
sions like "calumny," "malign aspersion," "backbiting," "slan-
der," "talebearing" are now in their proper meanings scarcely
intelligible to most people to say nothing of their essential
flavor and expressiveness having long since grown stale and
flat. What is "talebearing"? Our forebears understood by it:
privately spreading evil reports about another, and to that
other's friend, no less. And they maintained this was an espe-
cially grievous violation of justice, since no man can live with-
out friends. But it is obvious that today we can no longer
(rather, never again) describe such an act as "talebearing."
The fact that current adult speech has not maintained such a
usage, that we actually do not have words for such things and

55

JUSTICE

many others like them, seems to me most disturbing, and
thought-provoking. What term shall we use properly to render
dermOj the act that violates justice by bringing shame to an-
other through mockery? How designate the special form of
justice that goes with it and consists in sparing another man
shame?

What I have just said must appear trivial, mere "uplift,"
utterly unreal, to anyone coming from a world where the
concept of "liquidation" is valid. And yet, does it not corre-
spond to the reality of the give-and-take of human life that,
varying with the concrete demands of constantly changing
situations, one either acknowledges and grants the other his
due or else curtails it, deprives him of it, withholds it? The
significance of a theory of justice as a virtue lies precisely in
considering these manifold ways, giving them names, ordering
them, formulating them as ideal images, and making these im-
ages familiar to man's consciousness.

Justice, therefore, "consists in living one with another"; the
just man has to deal with the other.

In this present inquiry, however, we are concerned only with
the man who wants to be and should be just. Therefore,
we are not concerned with "the other," but rather with "the
one"; not with the one entitled to something, to whom some-
thing is due, but with the one bound by duty, the man who
has to give another his due. This is the man who is brought to
task by the demands of justice. The one called to justice finds
himself by this very fact in the position of a debtor.

Now there are many different degrees and grades of obliga-
tion. A person owes the agreed price of an article in a
different, stricter way than he is obliged to return thanks for a
favor. I am more rigidly bound not to deceive my -neighbor
than I am obliged to greet him on the street. Thomas has noted

56

Duty in Relation to "The Other"

very clearly this distinction between a demand of justice that
is legally binding and a demand of justice that is (only)
morally binding. I can be compelled to fulfill the first obliga-
tion; carrying out the second depends only on my own sense
of decency. Moreover, there is a further distinction to be made
between demands of justice that are only morally binding: a
violation can mean that the person who commits it has done
something dishonorable (if he lies, for example); but it may
also mean that without being strictly dishonorable, an action
has still been "unseemly" (in that it is unkind or unfriendly,
for example).

What is common, however, to all these obligations proper to
justice is that in every case there is a debitum, something ow-
ing, a debt. To be just means, then, to owe something and to
pay the debt.

One remark: If justice is understood in this way, then, as we
have already said, God cannot properly be called "just" even
though, on the other hand, none of the moral virtues, neither
fortitude nor temperance, can be ascribed to God with greater
justification than justice. God is indebted to no one. "Nothing
is owed to the thing created unless it be on the basis of some-
thing that pre-existed in it ... and again if this is owing to
the thing created, it will again be because of something prior
to it. And since we cannot go on to infinity, we must come to
something that depends only on the goodness of the divine
will" (thus the Swmwt Theologica) . At most, God's debt is to
Himself. "He renders to Himself what is due to Himself."
That, however, is not properly a debt and not properly
justice. On this point Thomas cites the Proslogion of Anselm
of Canterbury, in which he expresses the inscrutability of the
justice of God thus: "When thou dost punish the wicked, it is
just; since it agrees with their deserts; and when thou dost
spare the wicked, it is also just; since it befits thy Goodness."

51

JUSTICE

Once again: The distinguishing mark of justice is that some
debt is to be paid. But am I not doing my duty whenever, in
general terms, I fulfill a moral obligation?

It now comes to light that in ethics the fundamental princi-
ple of duty, of what one ought to do, of the debitum, has its
origin in the field of justice. In the Germanic languages, as
well as in Latin and Greek, there are words indicating moral
obligation that do not at the same time pertain to the realm of
justice. "Debt," "debit," and "to be indebted" are obviously
related words. And so are "owe" and "ought." The same thing
is true of the Latin words "debere, obligatum esse" And the
Greek word o^ecAo'^evoy (which means the same thing as "due,
debt, duty") has been related by Plato himself to the mean-
ing: "what has to be paid as a debt to another."

This indicates that the total structure of ethics is revealed, as
in a concave mirror, with clearer, sharper outline, in the struc-
ture of the act of justice. Something is here revealed that at
first glance might otherwise remain hidden. "At first glance
(primo aspectui)," says Thomas, "it might seem that, as long
as a partner does not come forth with a concrete claim, a
person may do whatever he thinks fit." But if we consider
more deeply, we will find that not only justice but every
moral obligation has a personal character, the character of the
commitment to the person to whom I am under an obligation.
"The notion of duty which is essential to a precept appears in
justice."

To do the good, therefore, does not mean that a person
obeys some abstract norm, an imperative without imperator.
On the contrary, even though it has to do with the most pri-
vate realm of one's thoughts or the disciplining of appetite,
which would seem "at first glance" to belong exclusively to
the individual, to do good or evil always means to give or
withhold from a person I have to deal with, what is "his." "We
are directed to another by all the precepts of the Decalogue"
the Decalogue, which forms a comprehensive Simrma of the
whole field of moral thought.

58

Duty in Relation to "The Other"

But who is that "other one" to be, whom man encounters
even when he is not being just (or unjust) in the narrow
sense? We can answer this question in two ways.

Firstly, the partner can be understood as the community,
the "social whole." Obviously I am concerned with the com-
mon good not only when I keep or break the civil law, when I
pay my taxes or go to the polls; the common weal is also
involved if I am disorderly or indolent in a seemingly private
capacity. The common good requires every individual to be
good. "The good of any virtue, whether such virtue direct
man in relation to himself, or in relation to certain other indi-
vidual persons, is referable to the common good, to which
justice directs so that all acts of virtue can pertain to justice."
And, inversely, every sin can in a certain sense be called an
"injustice." This is clearly a much broader notion of justice;
and for this reason, justice, as a cardinal virtue, cannot be
placed on a rank of equality with "fortitude" and
"temperance." Thus, Thomas speaks of "legal" or even "gen-
eral" justice (iusthia legalis, iustitia generalis) wherein "all vir-
tue is encompassed," which itself is "the most perfect virtue."
And Aristotle found words of poetry for it in the Nicoma-
chean Ethics: "The evening star nor the morning star is as
glorious" as justice.

Secondly, to say "every moral act has the structure of jus-
tice" can also mean that whoever does good or evil stands in
relation to God as His "partner," to whom he is giving or
withholding His due. "It belongs to general justice (iustitia
generalis} to do good in relation to the community or in rela-
tion to God." So while a man obeys or breaks commandments,
he is not dealing with "objective legality" but, rather, with a
personal lawgiver, with "some other person."

Nevertheless, the obligation that is to be fulfilled within the
scope of justice is utterly distinct from the obligation the man
of fortitude or the man of temperance is under not only in
substance but also in structure; not only in the What but also

59

JUSTICE

in the How. The distinction is this: We are able to judge from
external appearances what is "objectively" just or unjust, but
it does not make any sense to ask what is "objectively" brave
and cowardly, temperate and intemperate.

Justice is realized above all in an external act; "in the realm
of what is just or unjust, what man does externally is the main
point at issue." On the other hand, in the field of fortitude and
temperance man's inner state has primarily to be considered
and only then, secondarily, his external act. I cannot simply
consider a person's act, and on that basis decide whether he is
brave, cowardly, temperate, or dissolute; I would have to
know more of the person, I would have to know what his
disposition is. The justice of an act, on the other hand, can be
judged even from the outside, by an impartial third party.
How much wine should I drink without violating the virtue of
temperance? No stranger could determine that. But, how
much do I owe the innkeeper? That can be "objectively"
verified by anyone.

This peculiarity of justice, however, that it should first and
foremost be realized in an external act (arising, as it does, from
my discharging my obligations whether I do so readily or
not, whether I am in need or not, whether my creditor is rich
or poor; Kant says: "The other person may be in need or not,
he may be in distress or not; but if it is a question of his right,
then I am obliged to satisfy it") this distinguishing mark of
justice bears the closest possible relation to the fact that it has,
essentially, to do with the "other person." "The other person"
is not affected by my subjective disposition, by what I intend,
think, feel, or will, but only by what I do. Only by an external
act will the other receive what is his, his due. "Men are or-
dained to one another by outward acts, per exteriores actus,
whereby men live in communion with one another." That is a
sentence from the Simma Theologlca. It is also the reason
why, so Thomas says, in the realm of justice good and evil are

60

Duty in Relation to "The Other"

judged purely on the basis of the deed itself, regardless of the
inner disposition of the doer; the point is not how the deed
accords with the doer, but rather how it affects "the other
person."

The reverse of this statement is also valid. Not only is the
act of justice an external act, but every external act belongs to
the field of justice. Whatever external act a person performs, it
is either just or unjust.

Of course, this does not imply that there are no external acts
of fortitude, temperance, wantonness as well. Nevertheless,
Thomas does maintain the proposition: "Circa actiones est ius-
titia"; in any outward act, justice or injustice comes into
play. He gives an example: "When through anger one man
strikes another, justice is destroyed in the undue blow; while
gentleness (mansuetudo) is destroyed in the immoderate
anger." Such a case of coming to blows and of injured "gen-
tleness" may not seem particularly relevant, but the thesis
naturally extends much further. It also implies, for example,
that the whole field of sexual aberration, not adultery and rape
only, contains an element of injustice. We are not used to
perceiving or considering this point. We are apt to concentrate
almost exclusively on the subjective significance of dissolute-
ness as it affects the one who performs the act; whereas it
usually escapes us that it is the order of our communal life, and
the realization of the common good, which are equally
affected, and the more dangerously so the more "external" is
the act in question.

Thomas de Vio, also called Cajetan, the commentator of the
Sunrma Theologica, formulates a possible objection to this idea
in his commentary. He says that an act can be considered from
three different points of view, and the Swnma Theologica
names all three of them: the act can be treated in its relation-
ship and fittingness (cormnensuratio} to the one performing it;
in its relationship and fittingness to the other person; and
thirdly, it can be regarded in itself. Now this is the objection:

62

JUSTICE

Does not Thomas fuse the second and third considerations of
an act and confuse the one with the other? Cajetan replies,
interpreting Thomas: Hoc non te moveat Don't let this trou-
ble you; if "act" means the same as "external act," then it is
related to the other person of itself, by the very fact that it is
an external act. Consequently, it amounts to the same to say
"the act regarded in itself" and "the act regarded in its relation
to the other person."

To sum up: Every external act is of social consequence. We
do not speak without being heard; we do not make use of a
thing without using our own or another's property. It is jus-
tice, however, that distinguishes what is one's own from that
which belongs to another. Whoever teaches is not merely con-
cerned with true and false, above all not with a "private" view
of what is true, nor with "personal" opinions. He is quite as
concerned with the just or unjust. To teach untruth is not
only wrong but unjust as well. All Ten Commandments are
praecepta jastitiae. The whole field of the vita activa, also
called the vita civilis by Thomas "all of which is defined with
reference to our relations with other people" is the field of
justice.

If it is possible to designate the "just thing" apart from the
inner condition of the one who performs it, is it perhaps possi-
ble, too, to think that a person can do the "just thing" without
being just? In the realm of justice there is actually something
approaching a separation of deed and intention. In his treatise
on law Thomas says: "The mode of doing acts of justice, which
falls under the precept, is that they be done in accordance
with right; but not that they be done from the habit of
justice" a formula that is very sober and realistic, it is true,
but pretty pointed as well. It states that there is no need for a
man to be just in order that he may do "the just thing."
Whence it also follows that a person can do something unjust
without being unjust. And this is possible because there is
something "objectively" unjust, whereas it is meaningless to
speak of something "objectively" cowardly or patient.

62

Duty in Relation to "The Other"

Thus, if a soldier withdraws from a dangerous assignment
because he has misunderstood an order, he does not thereby
commit an act of cowardice. However, if anyone takes as his
own something belonging to another because he too has
misunderstood he is performing an unjust act, because some-
thing is taken from that other person which, in fact, belongs to
him. Yet he is not therefore unjust. Once again, this would be
quite inconceivable with reference to the other virtues. Who-
ever behaves himself in an unruly manner, whoever does
"something unruly," is unruly at least at that moment But
whoever, carried away by some passion, injures another, com-
mits an unrighteous act, does something unjust, it is true. None-
theless, he is not necessarily unjust for this reason.

An aside: Should not all this be of some significance for the
realm of political discourse, which is of course concerned with
what is just and unjust? Does it not imply, for example, that it
may be quite possible and logical to reject a certain political
objective as "objectively unjust" and even to combat it with
intensity without at the same time bringing the moral integ-
rity of one's opponent into the discussion?

Our present theme, however, is justice as a virtue. Now it
undoubtedly does pertain to a man's righteousness not only to
do the "just thing" but also to be just as well. Thomas quotes
the Nicomachean Ethics-. It is an easy matter to do what the
just man does; it is difficult, however, for one who does not
possess justice to do the just thing in the 'way the just man
does it. And he adds: "That is, with promptitude and
pleasure." Wherever justice in the full sense is done, the exter-
nal act is an expression of an inner assent: the other is acknowl-
edged and confirmed in what is due to him. But what is due to
him cannot be decided from the subjective, inner disposition
of the one bound by the obligation. What is due to a person,
what is an obligation, can and must be ascertained objectively.

"The mean of justice consists in a certain proportion of
equality between the external thing and the external person."

3. The Rank of Justice

WHEN THE QUESTION of the rank of a virtue its place
in the scale of eminence among the virtues is raised in tradi-
tional moral teaching, this is not just a whimsical game played
with allegorical figures of speech. It is, rather, a very precise
delineation of the image of the good man. The question
signifies: What makes man fundamentally good and righteous?
Understood in this way, the question as to the supreme virtue
is usually answered in accordance with the virtue most highly
esteemed at a particular period, such as "decency," or "self-
control," or "imperturbability," or "courage."

Now traditional teaching says that man reveals his true
being in its greatest purity when he is just; justice is the high-
est of the three moral (in the strict sense) virtues: justice,
fortitude, and temperance. The good man is above all the just
man. On this point Cicero is cited in the Swnma Theological
"Good men are so called chiefly from their justice," "the luster
of virtue appears above all in justice." Like the outer porch to
the temple, this pre-Christian wisdom is in harmony with
Christian doctrine, for Holy Scripture speaks more than eight
hundred times of "justice" and "the just man," by which it
means no less than "the good, the holy man."

It seems that this insight into the rank of justice is gradually
becoming more generally recognized in our time. First, the
image of the good man had been modeled after a rather bour-
geois concept of "morality," and later after an isolated ideal of
"the heroic"; and we have learned that injustice corrupts the

The Rank of Justice

fruits of fortitude and that "fortitude without justice is a
source (iniquitatis materiel) of evil." So it is once more possible
for us to see that justice, of all the human, natural virtues, is
literally the fundamental virtue.

This rank of justice can be established in many ways.

Firstly: Thomas says justice claims a higher rani because it
not only orders man in himself but also the life of men to-
gether. Justice reaches out beyond the individual subject, be-
cause in a certain sense it is itself the bonwn alterius, the "good
of another." The as it were concrete efficacy of good is re-
vealed in a higher manner in justice. For it is in the nature of
good to be "diffusivim sui" not to be limited to its place of
origin but to pour itself out, to work outside itself, to be
shared with others, to shine forth. "A thing is more eminently
good the more fully and widely it radiates its goodness." 'Tor
as that man is most utterly evil who allows his wickedness to
hold sway not only over himself but over his friends as well;
so is that man most utterly good who not only uses his good-
ness for himself but for others, too," Now this applies to jus-
tice in a higher degree than to the virtues of fortitude and
temperance.

Secondly: not only do the object and material of justice
(objection sine mxteria) establish its higher rank, but the sub-
ject does so, too. Exactly how is the subject of justice to be
distinguished from the subject of the other virtues? Is not the
subject always man himself, the human person? It is not easy
to arrive at an interpretation which makes it clear why St.
Thomas is so emphatic on this point.

The human person is naturally the subject of all moral atti-
tudes and decisions. Yet this subject is not a simple, homo-
geneous reality; above all else it is an entity composed of body
and soul. Various virtues can be thought of only because man
is a corporeal being. A pure spirit cannot be chaste (in the

65

JUSTICE

sense of temperantia) ; and such a being has just as little need
to moderate the stirring of anger or even to suppress fear.
Man, on the other hand, who strives mightily to realize cour-
age and temperance, is beset with the claims of the body; he is
the subject of fortitude and temperance in so far as he has
bodily existence. But this does not hold true of justice. The
demands of justice beset man at his spiritual core. Man is the
subject of justice to the extent that he is a spiritual being. Now
inasmuch as the power immediately supporting the act of jus-
tice is a spiritual desire; "inasmuch as justice," Thomas says, "is
in the more excellent part of the soul"; inasmuch as the de-
mand on man that he be just is directed at the innermost kernel
of his spiritual will, justice holds the foremost rank above all
the other moral virtues.

The case is conceivable in which a man has so succeeded, by
unceasing askesis, in his efforts to create order within himself,
that his senses no longer disturb the working of his spiritual
soul. What is left for him to do? Well, now, at last, he could
achieve what up till now he was prevented from doing, some-
thing that he could never realize in its essence: good itself,
properly human good. But what is that? Simply this: that man
attains to his true treasure and proper realization of himself
when he sees the truth and "does the truth.'* "The good of
man, insofar as he is man, consists in his reason's being per-
fected in the knowledge of truth and his subordinated appeti-
tive powers' being ruled according to the directions of
reason." Behind this statement of St. Thomas's stands the
thought that in the vision of truth, in contemplation, man
attains his proper fulfillment and also the full realization of
"human good." But just where does moral virtue find its place
within this scheme? Above all, what is the connection between
justice and "man's good," which is "the good of reason" or,
simply, truth? This is the answer Thomas gives: The good of
reason shines more brightly in justice than in any of the other
moral virtues; justice is closer to reason. Indeed, the good of

66

The Rank of Justice

reason consists in justice as its proper effect (sicut in proprio
effectu).

In his treatise on the virtue of fortitude St. Thomas raises
the question as to whether or not fortitude is the highest of the
cardinal virtues. Once more the reply sets out from the notion
of "man's good" (bonum hominis); and then, working from
this idea, which implies "the good of reason," truth, he formu-
lates the order of the virtues: "Prudence has the good essen-
tially. Justice effects this good; whereas the other virtues . . ."
But here it is impossible to suppress the following objection: Is
not an act of fortitude or restraint of desire a "realization of
the good," too? This objection, however, needs to be clarified.
The meaning of the term "act of fortitude" is rather complex.
The bravery of an act for example, if someone risks his life
for the community is a purely internal process, the mastery
of fear and of the natural impulse to live. But, on the other
hand, the external act of risking one's life, insofar as this is an
obligation to the community, is an act of justice. More exactly,
then, the objection is this: Is not the restraining of fear and
desire, as in courage and temperance, likewise "doing good"?
On that score Thomas in fact gives the answer: No! In con-
sidering the cardinal virtues, it is only through prudence and
justice that man is simply and directly (simpliciter) directed
toward the good. And for that reason he awards them pre-
cedence. But what of fortitude and temperance? The statement
our objection interrupted goes on to give the answer:
"Whereas the other virtues safeguard this good, inasmuch as
they moderate the passions lest they do lead man away from
reason's good." But how is this to be understood? To exercise
restraint and moderation, to overcome fear of death, is not yet
"doing good." These are not properly realizations of the hu-
man good. What are they, then? They create the basis indeed
the indispensable basis for the proper realization of the good.

Thorough confirmation and corroboration of this surprising
statement comes from the experience of the great ascetics.

JUSTICE

Their experience indicates that the real testing of, as well as
the most serious threat to, the inner man, begins only after that
basis has been established.

Once more: "Now to be a thing essentially ranks before
effecting it, and the latter ranks before safeguarding it by re-
moving obstacles thereto; wherefore amongst the cardinal vir-
tues prudence ranks first, justice second, fortitude third, tem-
perance fourth." We now see clearly why Thomas can say
that justice not only has its seat in the will, that is, in the
power that is formally directed toward the realization of good,
but also that through justice the will is applied to its proper
act. lustitia est humomim bomm Justice is the human good.
This conception of the rank which justice occupies can be
assessed as a permanent element in the traditional wisdom of
the West, quite apart from Thomas. We find a formulation of
this very view in the most extreme Platonic wing of that tradi-
tion, in Plotinus: Justice simply means "doing one's own
work" and "fulfilling one's own task."

The rank of justice is also asserted negatively. "Among all
the moral virtues it is justice wherein the use of right reason
appears chiefly . . . hence the undue (indebitus) use of rea-
son appears chiefly in the vices opposed to justice." The worst
disruption of order in the field of things naturally human, that
is, the true perversion of "human good," bears the name "injus-
tice."

It is therefore of considerable importance that man prepare
himself to encounter historical realizations of evil in which a
high degree of "morality" is joined with a considerable meas-
ure of "heroism," but which nonetheless remain thoroughly
and unsurpassingly inhuman and evil, because at the same time
they embody uttermost injustice. We would do well to bear in
mind that the uttermost perversion of mankind lies not in ex-
cess, which can be easily read in man's bearing and behavior,

68

The Rank of Justice

but in injustice, which, being essentially of the spirit, is not so
readily distinguishable. We ought to be prepared to find that
the most powerful embodiment of evil in human history, the
Antichrist, might well appear in the guise of a great ascetic.
This is, in fact, the almost unanimous lesson of historical think-
ing in the West. Whoever does not understand that it is injus-
tice which is natural man's worst destroyer, and the reason
why, will be thrown into overwhelming confusion by the expe-
riences announced in such visions. Above all, he will be power-
less to recognize the historical heralds of the abyss. For, even
while he watches out in the wrong direction, the forces of
destruction will establish their mastery right before his very
eyes.

6 9

4. The Three Basic Forms of Justice

WHEN MAY JUSTICE be said to prevail in a nation? For
the place of justice is in communal life; in an inquiry concern-
ing the realization of justice, we have to direct our attention to
the life of the community to the family, the industrial organ-
ization, to the nation organized as a state. One might almost
say that the subject of justice is the "community," although of
course it is only the person, and, therefore, the individual, who
can be just in the strict sense of the word. But to repeat our
question: When may justice be said to prevail in a community?

Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, Stobaeus, have given answers in
the form of maxims ascribed to the "Seven Sages." Their re-
plies demonstrate that our question has always been a subject
of philosophic speculation. The almost incredible timeliness of
their answers proves how very little the passing of time affects
this particular field. Thales (of whom Diogenes Laertius re-
ports several very pointed maxims) gives this reply to the
question about the strangest thing he had seen in his life: "A
tyrant who has grown old." The statesman Thales says: "If
there is neither excessive wealth nor immoderate poverty in a
nation, then justice may be said to prevail." Bias (to whom is
ascribed a thoughtful saying, also quoted by Thomas, of but
three words: apx? av&pa Set&i Mastery reveals the man)
gives this answer: "When everyone in the state fears the laws
as he would fear a tyrant." Solon replies with a well-aimed
remark: "Justice rules whenever a criminal is accused and

The Three Basic Forms of Justice

judged in the same way by all those he has not injured as he
would be by the person to whom he has done some injury."
This means that the true character of a criminal wrong is not
so much the loss of some possession, the injury to health or
life, but, rather, the implicit threat to the entire order of com-
munity life, affecting every member. Once this is recognized
by everyone, justice can be said to prevail in that state. A
series of noteworthy maxims of the Spartan Cheilon have also
been handed down to us by Diogenes Laertius. Here is just one
example: Three things are surpassingly difficult: keeping a se-
cret, accepting an injustice, making good use of one's leisure.
To the question about the just state, Cheilon answers that it is
realized whenever the citizen habitually pays most attention to
the laws and least to the orators. Pittakos, himself a ruler in his
own city, Mytilene, touches in his answer upon the form of
government. He says that if it is not possible for the wicked to
rule in a polis, and if it is likewise not possible for the good to
be excluded from ruling, then justice is a reality.

Anyone can see that these replies are not so much a matter
of stating formal definitions, rather, of giving some character-
izations that have been arrived at empirically, that is, of the
precipitate of experience.

St. Thomas's answer might have run like this: Justice rules
in a community or state whenever the three basic relations, the
three fundamental structures of communal life, are disposed in
their proper order: firstly, the relations of individuals to one
another (ordo partium ad partes)^ secondly, the relations of
the social whole to individuals (ordo totius ad fortes) ; thirdly,
the relations of individuals to the social whole (ordo partium
ad totum). These three basic relationships correspond to the
three basic forms of justice: reciprocal, or mutually exchanged
justice (iustitia ccnmnutativa), which orders the relation of
individual to individual partner*, ministering justice (iustitia
distributiva), which brings order to the relations between the

7'

JUSTICE

community as such and the individuals who are its members;
legal or general justice (iustitia legate, iusthia generalis),
which orders the members' relations to the social whole.

The hallmark of all three basic forms of justice is some kind
of indebtedness, different in character in each case. The obliga-
tion to pay the tax collector is different in kind from that of
settling my book dealer's account. And the legal protection the
state owes the individual is due to me, in principle, in quite a
different fashion from that in which my neighbor owes me the
return of a loan.

Moreover, a different subject is involved in each of these
three fundamental forms. To say that commutative justice or-
ders the relations between one individual and another is quite
obviously an inadequate formulation. Evidently it is not justice
that orders. It is the just man, it is man who orders. In the last
analysis it is man, and hence the individual person, who sup-
ports and realizes all three fundamental forms of justice. Yet
the individual is implicated in three different ways. The indi-
vidual as associate of other individuals sustains commutative
justice, whereas the subject of legal justice is, to be sure, once
again the individual, but now as the associate of the species, as
it were, as a member of the community, as a "subject." So, too,
the "social whole" cannot in any concrete sense make distrib-
utive justice a reality; again it is rather the individual man if
not the king, then the dictator, the chief of state, the civil
servant or even, in a consistent democracy, the individual, inso-
far as he has a determining role in administering the common
good.

One is tempted to give a diagram of these structures, though
such a sketch would necessarily be not only inexact but in
many details plainly inadequate. Yet inasmuch as that inescapa-
ble inadequacy brings into clear focus the necessity for correc-

7-2

The Three 'Basic forms of Justice

tions in what has already been said, it will not be wasted effort
to give some consideration to a diagram.* And in trying to
determine that inadequacy the reader will find that he is per-
sonally participating in the present discussion. He will find
himself drawn into a controversial discussion and compelled to
give a clear-cut interpretation of social reality, which means
human reality. In what respect, then, is the schema wrong?

Thomas would see the inaccuracy above all in that the indi-
vidual and the social whole are represented as separate, sharply
distinguished realities, whereas in actual fact the individual
who "confronts" the social whole is at the same time included
in it as a member. Thomas would always insist that in actual
fact individual persons, personae frivatae, have a reality, an
ontological status of their own, and cannot be simply reduced
to the reality of the social whole. The human community, the
state, Thomas says, is so constructed that the deeds and works
of the individual are not of necessity the deeds and works of
the whole; and similarly a functioning of the whole as such is
possible that is not identical with the functioning of the indi-
vidual member.

It may be objected that these are abstract speculations. But
in order to arrive, for instance, at a sound judgment on the
question of collective guilt, we have to go back to this ultimate
foundation.

A consistent individualism would raise a totally different
objection to our diagram because its premise is a different
interpretation of basic human relations. The individualist's criti-
cism would be that there are in reality only individuals, and
that, when an individual confronts the social totality, one indi-
vidual confronts many individuals. For him the social whole is
not a reality of a special order. Therefore he admits of only
one single type of justice commutative justice because in-
dividuals always have to do with other individuals. Every

* See the diagram on p. 113.

13

JUSTICE

phase of man's communal life, in the family as well as in the
state, is a compromise between the interests of individuals with
equal rights.

A third the collectivist interpretation is more immedi-
ately timely. It predicates that there is no such thing as an
individual capable of entering into relationships in his own
right. Above all, no private relations between individuals exist.
Man's life has a totally public character because the individual
is adequately defined only through his membership in the so-
cial whole, which is the only reality. Of course no social theory
can alter the fact that individuals are actually in relation with
each other. Even in the most totalitarian state, I address actual
men and hence individuals whenever I speak. However, all
such relations can at any moment be interpreted as "official," if
they have not been official in the first place. Suddenly I find
myself no longer associating with "my" friend, "my" wife,
"my" father, but with a co-functionary in the state cause, that
is, with a state functionary. As a result, all human relationships
are simultaneously subordinated to the yardstick of fulfilling a
function, and may abruptly cease to exist when I do not con-
form to the stipulated norm. Appalling examples of this type
are part and parcel of contemporary experience. Needless to
say, from this point of view the concept of commutative jus-
tice becomes meaningless; as, equally, the concept of distrib-
utive justice, which proclaims that an individual has rights not
only in his relations with other individuals but with the social
whole as well. And even the seemingly unaffected concept of
iustitia legalis, which formulates the individual's obligation to-
ward the functions of the state, has in the last analysis become
unthinkable. The notion of justice has ceased to be applicable
in any sense whatsoever.

The end result of this reasoning seems decidedly notewor-
thy. It becomes evident that the very essence of justice is

74

The Three Basic Forjns of Justice

threatened the moment the serious claim is made that these
three fundamental structures of the communal life (structures
that are independent of each other), and hence the three basic
forms of justice, simply do not exist. It seems that at least such
a threefold structure is required to do justice to the extremely
complex reality contained in the all-too-glibly treated twin
concepts "individual and society." But of course the decisive
factor is not the purely intellectual admission of conceptual
distinctions. The important thing, rather, is that justice pre-
vail and become a reality, in its threefold form.

5. Recompense and Restitution

COMPENSATORY or commutative justice is, as it were, the
classic form of justice, for several reasons. First of all, in the
relations between individuals, every partner actually confronts
an "other person" quite independent of himself; the "ad al-
teniTrf* is a fully realized fact. In the other two fundamental
relations, however, the individual does not properly
"confront" the "we" (those with whom he is in contact and
who are associated with him) as another separate person.
Then, too, the partner's equal rights are unreservedly realized
only in the situation of commutative justice. But here a second
element in the true concept of justice is suggested: "Justice is
simply (simpliciter) between those who are simply equal, but
where there is no absolute equality between them, neither is
there absolute justice,"

One consequence of this is that this kind of justice is not
thinkable in the relations between God and man. "Commuta-
tive justice, strictly so-called, cannot be said of God because it
would presuppose an equality between God, who gives, and
the creature, who receives."

In the manner of commutative justice that individual is just
who gives the other person, the unrelated individual, the stran-
ger, what is his due neither less nor more. To be sure, com-
imttatio (changing hands, the transfer of a thing from one
person to another) also applies in the making of a gift. Yet to
give a present is not an act of justice because the thing given is
in no sense owed, is not a debitum. On this score, Thomas

Recompense and Restitution

insists most energetically that justice should not go beyond
what is owed. This is not, I think, mere pedantry. Still less is it
a matter of niggardly minimalism. Rather it means, soberly and
without romantic illusion: the ideal image of iustitia commuta-
tiva demands that a man be able to acknowledge the rights
particularly of the stranger, whether he be in fact unrelated, or
felt to be alien, perhaps because he suddenly appears as "com-
petitor," threatening one's own interests, a person whose affairs
are "none of my business," whom I "don't care for," to whom
I would not dream of making a gift; against whom, rather, I
have to hold my ground and assert myself. To this very stran-
ger I have to give his due, neither more nor less: this is justice.

The charge of minimalistic niggardliness could also be raised
against contractual agreements, the established form of balanc-
ing interests, which is why iustitia commutativa has also been
called "contract justice." There are persons and movements
who, in an unrealistic overvaluation of "community" ideals,
regard the balancing of interests by contract as an inferior
form of regulating human relationships, since they are based
only on the "cold" calculation of one's own advantage.

It is true that the partners to a contract are "interested par-
ties." The very meaning of a contract is, indeed, to mark the
limits of each party's rights and to guarantee one party's claim
to a certain return as much as the other's obligation to make
that return. If love says: "Whatever belongs to me should
belong to the one I love, too," justice proclaims: "To each his
own." Which means that what is yours is yours, and what is
mine is mine. In relations built on love, that is, in relations
truly "shared" between man and man, there is no call for
either contract or, in the strict sense, for justice.

Countering the romantic overvaluation of a special form of
communal life, we have to bear in mind that, if the contract
represents a balancing of interests, it also represents a form of
mutual understanding. We perceive only one part of the real-

77

JUSTICE

ity if we consider nothing but the self-assertion of the party to
a contract. The other part, at least where a just and equitable
contract is concerned (which is here taken for granted
though a just contract is not a declaration of love, but remains
a method of balancing interests), is the mutual acknowl-
edgment of the parties. A contract implies a genuine obligation
and tie, as well as an expressly affirmed restriction of one's
own interest by the other party's interest. The reality of a
contractual balance of interests includes the faithful fulfillment
of the contract. It involves the acknowledgment of the princi-
ple of equality between service and counter-service. To sum
up: a contract is an instrument not of self-assertion only, but
also of rendering the "other" his due. However true it may be
that man's communal life cannot attain its fullest realization
through iustitia commutativa alone, it is no less true that in its
ideal image the irreducible core of social relations finds expres-
sion, that is the foundation which even the higher and richer
forms of mutual agreement require.

It is not easy to exhaust the implications of the proposition
in the Swnrna Theologica which says: The act of justice
which orders the association of individuals with one another is
restitutio^ recompense, restoration. A French translation tends
to weaken what Thomas has said and makes an interpretative
insertion to the effect that it is not a question of the act of
commutative justice but of its principal act (acte premier).
However, the sense of even this interpretation is that in the
field of iustitia covrmutativa "restitution" occupies a unique
place. As a matter of fact there is nothing about any other act
in Thomas.

What, then, is restitution Thomas himself gives the answer.
"It is seemingly the same as once more (iterate) to re-instate a
person in the possession or dominion of his thing." It is, then, a
restoration, a re-compense, a re-turning. What are we to make
of these reiterations? I think we would lose insight into the

7*

Recompense and Restitution

meaning hidden here if we were to reduce restitutio simply to
its present significance of restitution, that is, of returning an-
other person's property and making reparation for some ille-
gally wrought injury. Rather, we are here concerned with
"surprise" formulations that point to some unexpressed
thought which is self-evident to Thomas but not to us. A key
to what is meant here can be found in such a familiar phrase
as: "To give to each his own." There is something very much
to the point in Schopenhauer's objection: "If it is his own,
there is no need to give it to him." A condition of justice is the
startling fact that a man may not have what is nonetheless "his
own" as the very concept of "something due a person" im-
plies. Consequently, the recognition of the suwn can rightly be
called re-storation, a re-stitution, re-compense, re-instatement
to an original right. And this does not apply only to cases like
theft, fraud, and robbery (Thomas speaks of commutationes
iiwoluntariae, changes in original ownership which take place
against the will of one of the partners). It is not only in this
area that it is meaningful to speak of restitution wherever one
man owes another something (even in such voluntary obliga-
tions as buying, renting, or borrowing) or wherever due re-
spect is shown and due thanks are expressed, to give what is
due is always "restitution."

The state of equilibrium that properly corresponds to man's
essence, to his original, "paradisiac" state, is constantly thrown
out of balance, and has constantly to be "restored" through an
act of justice. Nor must the disturbance be necessarily under-
stood as injustice, though the fact that the act of justice is
called restitutio presupposes that injustice is the prevalent
condition in a world dominated by opposing interests, the
struggle for power, and hunger. To bring solace and order
into the conflict of contending interests which by their nature
are legitimate opposites and not easily reconcilable, to impose
on them, as it were, a posterior order, is the office and task of
commutative justice. The establishment of equity has as its

19

JUSTICE

premise that there is no natural equality, or that it exists not
yet, or no longer. That man, especially, is just who does not
become inured and hardened to disorder, not even to a disor-
der he may have originated himself at first impulse (to become
a man means learning to be unjust, says Goethe). The just man
recognizes when wrong has been done, admits his own injus-
tice, and endeavors to eradicate it. Who would deny that we
touch here the sore spot in all reciprocal relationships, and that
the basic way to realize commutative justice does in fact have
the character of restitution?

Yet, as has akeady been said, we need not turn our attention
only to compensation for injustice. Man's every act "disturbs"
the stable equilibrium, since every act turns the doer into
either a debtor or a creditor. And since men are constantly
becoming indebted to one another, the demand is constantly
raised to pay that debt by an act of "restitution." Therefore,
the equality that characterizes justice cannot be finally and
definitely established at any one time, it cannot be arrested. It
must, rather, be constantly re-established, "restored anew" (it-
erato). It has to be "reinstated." The "return to equilibrium,"
which, Thomas says, occurs in restitutio, is an unending task.
This means that the dynamic character of man's communal life
finds its image within the very structure of every act of
justice. If the basic act of commutative justice is called "re-
stitution," the very word implies that it is never possible for
men to realize an ideal and definitive condition. What it means
is, rather, that the fundamental condition of man and his world
is provisory, temporary, nondefinitive, tentative, as is proved
by the "patchwork" character of all historical activity, and
that, consequently, any claim to erect a definitive and unaltera-
ble order in the world must of necessity lead to something
inhuman.

80

6. Distributive Justice

WHOEVER speaks of distributive justice has to speak of
exercise of power. What is under discussion is the right order in
the relation between those who have power and those who are
entrusted or delivered to this power. That is why a discussion
of iusthia distributiva is the very center of the theory of jus-
tice.

Let us recall the characteristic structure of distributive jus-
tice by reminding ourselves that an individual man is not con-
fronted with another individual only, nor even with many
individuals. He is confronted by the social whole. It becomes
clear at once that the two partners are not of equal rank, not
only because many are more than one, but also because the
common weal belongs to another and higher order than the
good of the individual. Nevertheless, it is the individual who
is the partner with the claim in this relationship. He is the one
to whom something is due. This means that, on the other
hand, the social whole is the partner bound by an obligation.
The social whole ranks higher than the individual, and yet it
is bound by an obligation. We have already said that this
concept cannot be realized by a consistent individualism, and
certainly not by collectivism.

Hence the claim expressed in the ideal image of Iusthia dis-
tributlva is formally directed toward the social whole, the gov-
ernor, the ruler, the lawgiver. Man, as administrator of the
common weal, is brought to account and is obliged to give the
individual members of the whole their due. The ideal image of

JUSTICE

distributive justice, however, does not authorize individuals to
determine and assert on their own initiative what is due to them
on the part of the social whole. But though they are not so
authorized, this does not mean that such a premise would be
impossible and intrinsically counter to justice. Rather, where
justice is under discussion, whenever it is said, "Thou shalt be
just," the reference is not to the claimant, but to the one who
has to grant the due. In the case of iustitia distributiva this
means: the claim and appeal is directed to man in so far as he
represents the social whole. The fact that at first thought we
no longer consider the administrator of the common weal as a
person, that we have ceased to visualize him as an individual
open to personal approach and consider him as a faceless mech-
anism, shows the dangerous extent to which we are already
conditioned by collectivist thinking.

One more point has to be considered in order to make clear
the structure of distributive justice. There is an obligation due
to the individual in his relation toward the social whole that is
in principle different from his due as creditor toward debtor
in a situation of commutative justice. What belongs to him and
the way it belongs to him are quite different. In the case of
commutative justice, a creditor has the right to receive the
equivalent of a service he has rendered or reparation for a loss
he has sustained. It is his due as something belonging to him
exclusively as an individual. But what is the individual's due in
the case of iustitia distributiva? Nothing belongs to him as
exclusively his, non id quod est proprium-^ all that belongs to
him is a share in something common to everyone, id quod est
commune. In this instance the individual is not an independent,
separate party to a contract with claims equal to those of his
partner, as in iustitia cojmnutativa. He is faced with a partner
of higher rank, of which he himself is a part. "Distribu-
tive justice . . . distributes common goods proportionately."
"There are two kinds of justice: the one consists in mutual

82

Distributive Justice

giving and receiving . . . the other consists in distribution, in
distribuendo, and is called distributive justice; whereby a ruler
or steward gives to each what his rank deserves."

Several tangible consequences follow from this.

Firstly: In the situation of commutative justice, the due can
be as surely calculated and determined by the party entitled to
it as by the party obligated to pay it or even by an impartial
third party. That is not possible in the case of iustitia distrib-
utive Determining what is the due of any one person can only
be effected from the position and viewpoint of the one re-
sponsible for the common weal, for the very reason that a due
and fitting share in the common good is involved. In both cases
an obligation is established. But in the one case the obligation is
paid, in the other case it is allotted. If I sell my house, I can
leave the price due to me to be ascertained by a third party, or
I can bargain with the buyer, or I can simply demand it. If,
however, following the practice of equitable sharing of bur-
dens, some compensation is due me from the state to cover
damage to my house during wartime, I cannot determine inde-
pendently what is rightfully mine. Only the responsible guard-
ian of the common weal can establish what is due to me, as he
is concerned with the bomim commune.

Secondly: In the case of iustitia distributiva justice and
equity cannot be achieved by consideration of the actual value
only. In commutative justice such an approach is both possible
and meaningful A just price can be determined without ref-
erence to the person of the buyer or seller, simply by taking
into consideration the market value of the object that is to be
sold. In this case justice and equity consist in the aequalitas rei
ad rem, as Thomas formulates it. In the relation between the
social whole and individuals, on the contrary, what is just is
determined as "whatever corresponds to the thing's propor-
tion to the person." That means that the one who administers
the common good may not consider the object of the obliga-

JUSTICE

tion alone. Instead, he has to keep the subjects of the obliga-
tion in view as well. He must consider the individuals with
whom he has to deal. Thus, in the case of indemnity for war
damage, the true value of the damage is not the only thing to
be considered. Justice might demand the taking into account
of such factors as whether or not the damage has completely
impoverished the person, whether or not he had already made
any other great sacrifice for the social whole (as in the case of
a refugee or a battle casualty).

Thus, the compromise that has to be effected both in distrib-
utive justice and in commutative justice has a quite distinct
character in each instance. In the first case it is a
"proportional" equality (aequalitas proportionis), in the other
a purely numerical, "quantitative" equality (aequalitas quanti-
tatis). In the same place in his commentary on the Nicoina-
chean Ethics, again following Aristotle, Thomas has pointed
out that this distinction is the same as the difference between a
geometric and an arithmetic proportion.

The reader may possibly get the impression that what has
been said of distributive justice up to this point has a distinctly
"totalitarian" tinge. It is part and parcel of the intellectual and
political atmosphere of the day that this should be an almost
compulsive reaction. The idea that there is in distributive jus-
tice a single authority that administers the common good and
that is able, by virtue of its own rights, to decide what and
how much is due to me, is almost inevitably linked with that
other idea of enslaving the individual and encroaching upon
his rights. And at the same time a picture of "democracy"
looms up alongside it as the (supposedly) only remaining alter-
native, which leaves no room for genuine authority and thus
again veers toward despotism or has it close in its wake. In
view of this literally fatal choice, it is decisive that we should
recognize the ideal image of iustitia disfributiva and make it a
reality. Two things are combined in this image: the affirmation

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Distributive Justice

of genuine authority and at the same time the recognition of
the individual person to whom his right is absolutely due from
the social whole.

It is this very absoluteness, however, which gives rise to the
emotional objection. Rationally formulated, it would amount
to something like this: You say that in the individual's relation-
ship with the social whole something is due to the individual,
but not, as in the case of commutative justice, as an exclusive
personal right; rather, it is his share in a property common to
all. But are there not things to which I have an irrevocable, a
truly absolute claim, even when confronted with the social
whole, with the state?

The state, we may note, occupies a unique place in the scale
that extends from the individual to the whole of mankind;
more than anything else, it represents the "social whole." The
idea of the common good is its distinctive attribute. A nation
(in the midst of other nations) ordered in a state is the proper,
historically concrete image of man's communal life. Comrnu-
nitas politica est comtmmitas prmcipalissimaPokticzl commu-
nity is community in the highest degree. In the fullest sense
the state alone incorporates, realizes, and administers the
bonum commune. That does not mean, however, that the fam-
ily, the community, free associations, and the Church are not
important for the realization of the common good, too. But it
means that the harmonizing and integration of nearly all men's
functions occurs only in the political community. In the state
alone is sovereignty vested and with it the authority and the

power to maintain the bonum commune in its fullest sense an

authority which includes the full right to impose punishment.
"Since the state is a perfect society, the ruler of the state
possesses full power of compulsion. Therefore, he can inflict
irreparable punishment such as death or mutilation." "On the
other hand, the father and the master who preside over the
family household, which is an imperfect community, have im-

8$

JUSTICE

perfect coercive power." To sum up, the state is, to a degree
encountered in almost no other instance, the representative of
the "social whole," of "us."

But to get back to our question. How are we to proclaim
the inalienability of the individual's rights vis-a-vis the state if,
on the other hand, it is true that in the relationships characteris-
tic of iustitia distributiva nothing is due to the individual
which is exclusively his? First of all, let us briefly consider the
special nature of this kind of obligation. The objection presum-
ably refers first and foremost to the right to life, health, and
freedom. In what respect is there a special form of obligation
in the relationship between individual and state? In his relation
to the state, the individual's right to life and health, for exam-
ple, is not so exclusively his that the state might not require or
curtail it in the interest of the common good. Against any
individual, I may in an emergency defend my life, health, free-
dom, even my property, to the extent of killing the aggressor.
Public authority, however, can quite legitimately deprive an
individual of his freedom, not only when he has committed a
crime, but also when it happens that through no fault of his he
has fallen victim to a contagious disease that would endanger
the social whole. And the administrator of the bonwn com-
mune can even make decrees affecting the individual's prop-
erty under certain conditions.

All this does not in any sense imply that the authority of the
state must first "endorse" life, freedom and property for the
individual, nor that it can grant them to him. Yet, no matter
how the powers of public authority are constituted and lim-
ited, this much at all events is clear: in his relationship with
public authority, a suwn belongs to a private person in a fash-
ion quite different from that applying to his relations to an-
other private person. It is this peculiar structure in the actual
fabric of communal life that we bring to light when we get to

S6

Distributive Justice

the roots of the distinction between commutative justice and
distributive justice.

Is there not, then, something "inalienable," as it were, in the
individual's rights over and against the social whole? Yes, there
is. Wherein does it manifest itself? It is revealed in the limita-
tions and conditions set for these encroachments of the state's
authority: that power can only be wielded "if the common
good demands it." As a member of the whole, the individual
has an inalienable right to expect that the distribution of
goods, as well as of burdens, be effected justly (that is, justly
in the manner of iustitia distributiva) . But is there any way to
render the individual's inalienable rights secure? Is there any
effective way to defend them?

At this point we shall have to speak of another peculiarity
of iustitia distributive We are in the habit of saying that the
distinguishing mark of an obligation in the realm of justice is
that it is possible to compel its execution. The fulfillment of
iustitia distributive however, cannot be enforced. It is inherent
in the concept that no such enforcement should be possible.
For who, indeed, is to compel the man in public authority to
give the individual what is due to him? Yet it is to him, as the
person invested with the state's authority, that distributive jus-
tice extends its claims: he is the subject of this particular form
of justice. We have here the instance of a person under a
definite obligation to grant something that is due to an indi-
vidual, to give people their "just due/' and who yet cannot be
compelled to do so. There is no question but that in this in-
stance the inalienability of an individual's rights, which contin-
ues to obtain, takes on a very special hue.

If an individual cannot come to some agreement with his
neighbor, for instance in the question of settling a debt, both
can bring the matter before a third authority, before a court of
law. But if a person feels he has not obtained his due from the
public authority, there is no "impartial" authority before

JUSTICE

whom he may bring the matter. But are not "appeal" and
"review" possible in the case of an unjust judgment in a court
of law? Here we must endeavor to see clearly what this re-
course from one authority to the next really means. The high-
est courts of law, like the lower courts, are organs of but one
and the same juridical society. Even the highest tribunal exam-
ines nothing but the legal aspects of a case and the application
of existing laws. But what if the laws themselves are unjust?
What if injustice befalls an individual on the basis of existing
laws, simply because he belongs to a certain race, class, or
religious community? This would be a case in point. To
whom, then, could an "appeal" be addressed? Not to mention
situations which do not even allow the opportunity for an
objection, as, for instance, in the case of an enemy attack,
when of necessity the most far-reaching measures may inter-
fere with private rights.

In view of the objective injustice of certain laws, directives,
decrees, and orders, the question naturally arises concerning
the rights of resistance and nonobservance, yet never in such a
form that the individual affected by those kws and regulations
could appear jointly with their author before the tribunal of
an independent, superior party equipped with compulsory
power. In short, the person invested with the authority of the
state, the man who is the subject of iustitia distributive cannot
actually be compelled to the just performance of his office
because he himself is at one and the same time guardian and
executor of distributive justice. "A ruler is installed for the
purpose of guarding justice." "The purpose of power is to
realize justice." What if the guardian of justice nevertheless
does not guard it? Well, then, alas, there is the reign of injus-
tice. And no appeal to any abstract arbiter such as "the con-
science of mankind," "the eye of the world," and "the judg-
ment of history" can in any way change it.

Whoever thoroughly examines the structure of iustitia dis-
tribzttiva must come to realize very clearly the nature of genu-

SS

Distributive Justice

ine authority, and to see that no worse or more desperate
mishap can be imagined in the world of men than unjust gov-
ernment. And since institutional precautions and controls
could entirely prevent the abuse of power only by precluding
any form of effective authority, there is nothing and no one
that can restrain the man of power from doing injustice if
not his own sense of justice. In the affairs of the world, every-
thing depends on the rulers' being just.

We have already said that the traditional doctrine of justice
is concerned not with the claimant but with the man owing a
claim. It is not concerned with the declaration of human
rights, belonging to men as their legitimate claim. Rather, it is
the proclamation and establishment of the obligation to respect
rights. We are not saying this at this juncture merely for the
sake of moralizing. What we have in mind has quite a different
significance. At first glance it seems to be a much more aggres-
sive approach to declare rights than to proclaim and establish
duties. In reality, quite the reverse is the case. Is not the dec-
laration of a claim by the one entitled to it more of a defensive
gesture? A gesture based on a kind of resignation (perhaps a
not unfounded one) to the fact that the men under obligation
would not concede what is due unless the claimant backed up
his demands by force? Reference to the obligation in justice,
on the other hand, is not only more audacious, but far more
realistic as well all appearances to the contrary. Reference
here, to be sure, is not used as a rhetorical term. It is meant to
designate the convincing proof of the ground upon which
such an obligation rests, and in particular whatever might
serve, in the broadest sense, the realization of justice as a hu-
man virtue in the state. This approach, therefore, is far more
realistic because in the final reckoning it will only be through
justice that each man will be given the share that is his,
through the justice of those who can give or deny what is due
to men; because merely asserting rights never creates justice;
because justice in distribution will be realized only through
just government. It is an illusion fostered by our socio-tech-

JUSTICE

nological thinking to assume that a mere organizational perfec-
tion of political life, for instance through built-in automatic
controls, might render justice as a virtue obsolete "the stead-
fast will (of the individual of course!) to give each man his
due."

If, however, it is a Utopian dream to think that just govern-
ment can exist in the world, if it is a Utopian goal to think that
the educative efforts of a people should primarily aim at form-
ing the young generation, especially those called to leadership,
into just men then all hope must indeed be abandoned.

One thing, of course, is indispensable: that a sense of the
greatness and dignity of governing and ruling be revived in the
mind of the public. This is all the more necessary since the
"intellectuals" of the past hundred years have been virtually
defined by their ironical treatment of the terms "authority"
and "subject," with the result that nowadays these words can
hardly be spoken or understood without bias. Individualistic
liberalism is in fundamental agreement with orthodox Marxism
on this point, namely that there is no "governmental
authority" properly so called. For individualism, authority is
vested in agreements between individuals which, as a matter of
principle, can be canceled at any time; for Marxism, it is the
hallmark of those preliminary stages of society which will one
day dissolve altogether within a Communist society.

In his Politics Aristotle has raised the question whether or
not being a good citizen and a good man are one and the same
thing- Can a person who is not a good man nonetheless be a
good citizen in the polish He leaves the question in abeyance.
On the one hand, he says, a state cannot possibly be composed
of nothing but excellent men, and nevertheless there are excel-
lent states. On the other hand, there are states (and they are
not the just states) wherein a person can be one of the better
and more desirable citizens without being a good man. We are
struck by the timeliness of this thought. Aristotle adds a

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Distributive Justice

thoughtful statement which is of interest to us here. He says:
There is, perhaps, one citizen who is required to be a good man
also (that is, good as man, a man wholly and entirely in order)
and that man is the ruler. And on the other hand, the just ruler
according to Bias's maxim that mastery reveals the man
has always been considered as a pre-eminently excellent repre-
sentative of human virtue, as a man who by the justice of his
rule proves that he has resisted those superhuman temptations
which assail only men in authority.

In his treatise on political government Thomas asks about
the suitable reward a just king can expect to receive, "since the
king's duty to seek the people's good may seem too onerous a
task, unless something good accrues to him for himself. It is
worth contemplating, then, just what kind of suitable reward
there is for a good king." Wealth, honor, and renown are
mentioned, but all of them put together are considered an
inadequate recompense. And when Thomas concludes this
magnificent passage with the statement that the just ruler will,
"as his reward, be near God and stand at His side inasmuch as
he has faithfully exercised the king's divine office over his
people," it means that he apportions to the good ruler an
incomparable, almost metaphysical distinction of rank, not by
virtue of the religious character of his consecration, but on the
grounds of his just rule. This view is further strengthened by
the words then added: "Even pagan peoples had some pro-
phetic presentiment of this when they believed the leaders and
guardians of the people would be transformed into gods." It is
more than arbitrary "poetic" allegory when, in his Divine
Comedy, Dante sees the just kings in the constellation Aquila,
fashioned in the shape of an eagle by the lights of those rulers
who had been taken up into heaven.

Such formulations are misunderstood if they are interpreted
romantically. They are actually based on a highly realistic in-
sight into the danger that usually threatens the ruler, and into

JUSTICE

the almost superhuman difficulty involved in making iustitia
distributiva a reality.

If political life is to regain its dignity, a proper appreciation
of the eminence of the ruler's task and of the lofty human
qualities required for it must be revived in the mind of the
public. This means the very opposite of a totalitarian
glorification of power. It implies rather that an arduous and
unremitting effort of education should impart to the people an
incontrovertible ideal image of the requirements a man must
meet if he is to exercise authority. It should, for example, be
perfectly clear and self-evident to the simplest kind of think-
ing that wherever prudence and justice are lacking, there can
be no fitness for the proper exercise of power. In Aristotle's
Politics, as well as in the Swnma Theologica of Thomas
Aquinas, these two cardinal virtues are called the virtues
characteristic of sovereigns and rulers. Yet according to the
moral doctrine of the West the prudent man is certainly not
merely a "tactician" able to steer an affair successfully to its
conclusion. Prudence implies the kind of objectivity that lets
itself be determined by reality, by insight into the facts. He is
prudent who can listen in silence, who can take advice so as to
gain a more precise, clear, and complete knowledge of the
facts. If such a standard were applied, it would probably mean
that even without formally rejecting him in fact before there
were any discussion about him a rash, brash person, moti-
vated by emotion or craving for power, would ea ipso be
excluded from running for office, as manifestly unfit to realize
the justice of rulers, iustitia distributiva. For exercising this
justice means, on the one hand, taking the common good into
consideration and, on the other, respecting at the same time
the dignity of the individual and giving him what is his due.

Up to this point we have spoken of the "ruler" or "king" as
the administrator of the common good. In respect to contem-
porary conditions, our terminology, of course, needs to be

9*

Distributive Justice

corrected and made more precise. But even though there is no
occasion in this present context to treat the different forms of
government in detail, it may still be noted in passing that ac-
cording to Thomas Aquinas, monarchy is the form of govern-
ment which of its very nature most readily guarantees sensible
administration of the common good. He also says, however,
that of all the possible ways in which authority may degener-
ate, unjust monarchy is the worst. "Just as kingly rule is the
best, so is the rule of the tyrant the worst." And there is still
another astonishing remark of St. Thomas to consider, namely
that tyranny arises more easily and frequently from democ-
racy than from the rule of kings.

In a modern democracy, then, who is the subject of iustitia
distributive^ The chosen representatives and delegates of the
people are the direct subjects; indirectly the voters are. In this
connection we should remember that voters are hardly ever
active directly as single individuals, but are organized into par-
ties which (as suitable machinery for forming opinion) both
name the representatives to be elected and formulate their con-
crete political aims. The distinctive peculiarity of the demo-
cratic form of government as compared with monarchy con-
sists above all apart from the short period for which the
delegate is appointed in the fact that the representative of the
social whole is to a much greater extent the representative of
particular groups or interests as well. Therefore, if ruling is
tantamount to administering the general good of everyone (a
notion which is formally denied, for instance, in a concept like
the "dictatorship of the proletariat"), then the way in which
democracy functions imposes the following tremendous moral
burden upon the individuals, voters and delegates alike: the
individual is obligated by an ideal image of just distribution
without ceasing to be interested in his own particular right.
The main problem facing modern party democracy is: How
can a party still be impartial? I would not say it is impossible.
Indeed, any inconsidered polemic against party politics as such
is highly unrealistic and for that reason irresponsible. Yet we

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JUSTICE

must see that a real problem and a very specific danger do
exist here or rather, a task, namely the task of educating men
to iustitia distributive

In this field there are several classic cases of failure. The
following example dates from the last years of the Weimar
Republic: In one of the great wage disputes of that time, the
two parties involved in the dispute appealed to the decision of
the federal minister of kbor, as a final tribunal. Whereupon
this man, who in his role of minister and arbitrator was under a
twofold obligation to the bonum commune, declared that in
this case he was primarily secretary of the trade unions and
only secondarily a member of the federal government.

Here the limitations of democracy as a form of government,
that is, as a ministering of the common good, come to light.
The limit is reached when it can no longer be expected of an
individual that he place the bonum commune above his own
particular interest. It is not possible, I believe, to determine
that precise limit once and for all. Historically speaking there
is very considerable scope for variation in terms of the level a
people's political education has attained. Thus, in one instance
democracy as a government actually exercised jointly by
everyone in the community does "work"; in another case it
does not. Yet it seems that there are certain boundaries beyond
which it cannot be expected from human frailty that concern
for the welfare of the whole should overrule the individual's
immediate concern or the interest of a special group; these
boundaries seem to set limits for democracy as well. There can
be little doubt, for instance, that in a "first ballot,'' the average
person cannot be expected to answer the question: "Do you
want a higher wage, a tax cut, release from the draft, etc., or
not?" with the bonum commune primarily in view.

Thus, the question: Who actually realizes iustitia distributive
does not always receive a full answer. Thomas says that it is

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Distributive Justice

primarily the one who administers the bonum commine\ but
the individual, the "subject" (subditus), is also called to the
realization of the ideal image of distributive justice; he, too,
can be just in the manner of iustitia distributiva indeed, he
must be so, if the challenge of the virtue of justice is to be
satisfied. Thomas, however, is not speaking here of the individ-
ual as participating in the shaping of the common good as
voter or delegate; he is thinking of the individual in his
capacity as taxpayer, for example, or as the man subject to
military service as "the governed," in brief. But how can the
individual, from that point of view, still be considered to be a
subject of distributive justice, since he has not the slightest
chance of "distributing" anything? Thomas gives the follow-
ing answer: "The act of distributing the goods of the commu-
nity belongs to none but those who exercise authority over
those goods; and yet distributive justice is also in the subjects
(in subditis) to whom these goods are distributed, insofar as
they are contented by a just distribution." This "contentment
on the part of the ruled" should not be interpreted as stolidity.
It is part of the act of justice to give one's conscious consent
to the just and equitable decrees of a political authority acting
in the interest of the common good and not just lip service,
but, rather, a consent that molds the actual attitude and con-
duct. Through his act of consenting, the "subject" takes part
in the ruler's justice.

Such a premise does not exclude a legitimate right to criti-
cism and "opposition." (In fact, Thomas is even of the opinion
that laws which do not serve the true common good do not
possess any binding power.) It does, however, oppose a biased,
negative attitude, illoyal from the very start. Unwarranted crit-
icism and opposition, blind abuse and fault-finding, are acts of
injustice, violations of iustitia distributiva which alone enables
states to exist and function in orderly fashion.

Once again it is clear that we are here touching upon a
danger inherent in the democratic form of government. Once

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JUSTICE

more we come to a point which calls for rigorous political
self-discipline. We are reminded of the words of Donoso-
Cortes, in a parliamentary address of 1850 concerning the Eu-
ropean situation: "The evil that confronts our time is that
those who are ruled no longer are willing to be ruled." At this
juncture the parliamentary record comments: "Laughter." Do-
noso-Cortes wanted to imply that genuine authority not only
requires men fitted for the offices of government, but also
presupposes an inner disposition on the part of the governed, a
readiness to participate in the just rule by giving their consent
to a just administering of the bonum commune.

Exactly what is distributed in the act of iustitia distributive
We have already quoted the following text from the Summa
Tbeologica: "In distributive justice something is given to a
private individual insofar as what belongs to the whole is due
to the part." This means that the share in the bonum commune
due to the individual is "distributed" to him.

This is the place, then, to seek a somewhat clearer under-
standing of the concept of "bonum commune" Provisionally,
the bonum comrmme might be defined as follows: it is the
"social product," the total product of community life. The
element of truth in this answer is that individuals do work
together in all the group activities and professions within a
society and co-operate in the production of something that is
quite unique, and perhaps irreducible to organized concepts.
The result is that food, clothing, shelter, means of commu-
nication, transmission of news, care of the sick, education and
schools, along with many other kinds of goods for consump-
tion, are now available for the people, that is, the "social
whole." The concept iustitia distributha would mean that all
these goods are shared and "distributed" in like manner to all
members of the community.

One remark: The concepts of "class," "class dispute," and
"class struggle" have their pkce within this context. There is

Distributive Justice

no compelling reason why any Western theory of society
should ignore these notions. For the idea of "class dispute" is
not to be considered as purely negative. The implication is
rather: if one social segment, that is, a considerable group of
the people, considers the prevailing method of sharing the
total social product as detrimental to its own legitimate inter-
ests and opposes it, therefore, as contrary to the spirit of true
communal life, then that social group has become a "class."
This attack against the prevailing order generates auto-
matically the resistance of that stratum of the society which is
interested in maintaining the status quo and will therefore de-
fend it. This defense again leads automatically to the formation
of another "class." Class dispute, therefore, is the natural
result of the existence of various classes within a society. And
it is quite conceivable that there might be a class dispute ani-
mated by a desire for justice. A totally different meaning at-
taches to the term "class struggle" in orthodox Marxism. Here,
class struggles strive to annihilate the opposing class and to
destroy order in a nation. Fruitful dispute among classes, on
the contrary, which aims at the "deproletarianizing of the
proletariat," not only does not abolish order in the nation
(though it may be in constant danger of deteriorating into
class struggle), but actually has that order as its goal.

I said above that provisionally we might try to define the
concept "bonum commune^ as the total social product. Yet
this definition is still not quite adequate. First of all, it origi-
nates in the mental outlook of our technological age, which
tends to see the true end of society in the techniques of pro-
duction; in view of its origin, such a definition harbors the
danger of obscuring the fact that the bonum coimmme extends
far beyond the range of material goods produced by mechan-
ical means. There are contributions to the common weal
which, though not immediately "useful," are still indispensable
and of very real value, as well. This is no doubt the sense in
which St. Thomas's text is to be understood: The perfection
of the human community demands that there be men who

JUSTICE

dedicate themselves to a life of contemplation, a tenet which
signifies that the society of men relies for its functioning on a
knowledge of the truth, and that nations thrive in proportion
to the depth of reality opened up and accessible to them.

It becomes possible at this point to formulate a preliminary
definition of the totalitarian labor state. It belongs to the princi-
ple of such a state that the common good is equated with
"common utility." Its projects for the realization of the bonum
commune are exclusively concerned with utilitarian ends.

A second objection to the definition: The bommi commune
is the social product, strikes at a much more basic inadequacy.
By virtue of the original and enduring meaning of the term
bonum commune, it represents the good (the very essence of
those good things) for the sake of which a community exists,
and which it must attain and make a reality if it is to be said
that all its potentialities have been brought to fruition. For this
very reason it appears impossible to give a truly exhaustive,
definitive definition of the bonum c&mmune\ for no one can
state with complete finality what the potentialities of the hu-
man community are, what the human community "funda-
mentally" is. No one can give a truly exhaustive account of
what man himself "fundamentally" is, and consequently it is
just as impossible to give an exhaustive account of everything
contained in man's "good," for the sake of which man exists
and which he has to realize in his life if it is to be said of him
that all his potentialities have been brought to fruition. This
and nothing else is the meaning behind the assertion so stub-
bornly defended by Socrates: that he did not know what "hu-
man virtue" was and that he had still to meet the man who
knew better.

If we are thus to understand bonum commune, what do we
mean when we say that we give a man that share in the com-
mon good which is due to him? What does it mean to realize
histhia ditfributiva? It means to let individual members of a

Distributive Justice

nation share in the realization of a bonum commune that can-
not be definitively delineated in concrete terms. Taking part in
the realization of that good in accordance with the measure of
dignitas, capacity, and ability that is distinctively his, this is the
share which "is due to" the individual and which cannot be
withheld from him by the person administering the bonum
commune without violating iustitia distributive*, the justice
proper to rulers. This suggests a much wider reference,
namely, that all the good things bestowed in creation (men's
capacities and abilities) belong to the "good of the com-
munity," and that iustitia distributiva entails the obligation
of granting such abilities the protection, support, and fostering
they need.

With this it becomes possible to f ormulate one more essential
element of totalitarian government. The person endowed with
political power claims to give a comprehensive definition of
the tangible content of the bonum commune. The fact that a
"five-year plan" tries to achieve a higher rate of industrial
production or seeks a closer adjustment between supply and
demand is not in itself a fatally destructive feature. What is
fatally destructive is the elevation of such a "plan" to an exclu-
sive standard to which not only the production of goods is
subordinated but also the work at the universities, the creative
activity of the artist, and the use of leisure. Thus, everything
that cannot be justified by this standard must, for that simple
reason, suffer suppression as "socially unimportant" and "unde-
sirable."

It is in the nature of things that a "distributor" should take
some thought of the person who receives, but that a "buyer"
should consider only the actual objective value of the thing
received. Here we are faced, as has already been said, with the
main distinction between iustitia distributiva and commutative
justice. In fulfilling the justice of government the administrator

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JUSTICE

of the bonum ccmmtwne necessarily considers the person and
his digmtas (dignity can, in this case, signify both a special
aptitude for a certain office and "worthiness" [in the proper
sense], that is, meritorious service distinguished by public rec-
ognition).

It seems to me that, generally speaking, few things appear to
point so patently to the inner corruption of political commu-
nity life as the skeptical or cynical indifference with which the
young generation of today looks upon distinctions bestowed
by the state. There may well be valid reason for such skepti-
cism, yet we cannot overlook how disturbingly it reveals the
lack of confidence in the fundamental function of the ruler's
justice, the act of "distributing." But that is a fresh theme.

At present, however, the main point at issue is the peculiar
structure of the act of distributing and, more especially, re-
spect for the person and for his dignitas. There are clearly two
distinct ways in which we can have respect for a person. One
way looks to the person with the aim of effecting just
equality; through the other, such equality is completely frus-
trated. This is the distinction between impartial and partial
respect for the person. In the present instance impartial re-
spect is seen to be the specific requirement of distributive
justice, partiality its specific ruin.

A moment's thought will show that one of the most easily
recognizable characteristics of the contemporary totalitarian
constellation of power is expressly to cast suspicion on impar-
tiality and objectivity, while it is part of its program to de-
clare that partiality and "following the party line" constitute
the very essence of true public spirit. Such maxims must be
considered a threat and temptation to men's political thinking
throughout the whole world. They should help us to realize
the urgency for restoring in the public's mind the idea of
justice as it is formulated in traditional doctrine and contained
in the old-fashioned Biblical formula, "respect for the person"
(acceptio personarum). That expression recurs constantly in

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Distributive Justice

both the Old and New Testaments. "Judge that which is just,
whether he be of your own country, or a stranger. You shall
hear the little as well as the great: neither shall you respect any
man's person: because it is the judgment of God." This state-
ment is made in the Book of Deuteronomy (I, i6ff.) in the
direction of Moses to the overseers and judges. In the New
Testament, in one of Paul's Epistles (Eph. 6, 9), the admoni-
tion (likewise directed to the "lords") is found: "Thou know-
est that the Lord both of them and you (slaves) is in heaven:
and there is no respect of persons with him."

Thomas has devoted a special question to this notion. "It is
respect of persons when something is allotted to a person out
of proportion to his deserts" (praeter proportionem dignitatis
ipsius). The typical instance of "respect of persons," and the
one which threatens political communal life, is not so much
the case in which a man receives (or does not receive) distinc-
tion and honor at variance with his true merit. It is rather that
public offices and administrative positions are conferred upon
men without concern for their qualifications. The Summa
Theologica sets down in incontrovertible terms what impartial
regard for the person and unjust "respect of persons" is. "If
you promote a man," Thomas writes, "to a professorship on
account of his having sufficient knowledge, you consider the
due cause, not the person" though the candidate must still be
examined very thoroughly, and hence, "looked over" very
carefully. "But if, in conferring something or someone, you
consider in him not the fact that what you give him is propor-
tionate or due to him, but the fact that he is this particular man,
Peter or Martin, then there is respect of the person." Or, "if a
man promote someone to a prelacy or a professorship because
he is rich or because he is a relative of his, it is respect of
persons." For the rest, however, Thomas showed realistic re-
straint in leaving to experience the wholly independent matter
of establishing the precise qualifications and merits actually

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JUSTICE

required for a certain post. This refraining from assertion here
is part of the matter in hand. Wishing to define a suitable
qualification abstractly and "in itself," smpliciter et secundum
se, is not feasible. Thus a case is quite conceivable in which (in
a religious office, for example) a man who is less holy and
learned may nevertheless make a greater contribution to the
common good perhaps by virtue of his greater energy and
efficiency or because of his "w r orldly" industry. The same prac-
tical wisdom expressed in this remark is repeated in a book on
friendship by the Cistercian abbot, Aelred of Rievauk, in
which he says offices must not be bestowed for any reason
other than qualifications; for even Christ did not make His
favorite disciple, John, the head of His Church.

It is left, then, to prudentia regnativa, the prudence of the
ruler, and distributive justice to recognize true "worthiness"
and to distribute offices and honors in due proportion to real
dignitas. That means preserving and realizing equality of jus-
tice in spite of having respect for persons; for equality will be
just as surely violated by respect of persons as it will be by an
indiscriminate treatment of everyone which systematically
overlooks any and all distinctions.

Justly combining a viewpoint which looks to men's distinc-
tive qualifications and merits with a point of view that con-
siders men's natural equality (for there certainly is a proper
worth which is in the same proportion in every man who
bears the countenance of man!) is an almost impossible task.
We might say that in this case more than human effort is
required. Here we stand in real need of the "favor of the
fates" and "the favorable dispensation" of superhuman powers.
In a late work of Plato's there is a passage that expresses this
point in memorable fashion. Above all else, Plato says, the
statesman must constantly keep in mind that justice in virtue
of which everyone, though possessed of unequal abilities, re-
ceives his due in proportion to his right. But from time to
time, so that internal discord within the state may be averted,

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Distributive Justice

it is inevitable that equality "so-called" equality, as Plato
terms it take the place of justice. Occasionally, then, the
statesman must make use of the equality of the fates. Yet in so
doing he should not neglect to appeal to "God and good for-
tune," praying that they may let the die fall in the way that is
most just. What portion of irony, what of helplessness, and
again of trust in the dispensation of the gods, are contained in
this Platonic thought who can tell?

103

7. The Limits of Justice

WE HAVE ALREADY said that it is of the nature of com-
munal life for men constantly to become indebted to each
other and then just as constantly to pay one another the debt.
We have further said that as a result the balance is in a constant
state of shift and needs constantly to be restored to equilib-
rium. The act of justice is precisely to effect this process of
compensations, restitutions, and satisfactions for debts.

It now remains for us to state that the world cannot be kept
in order through justice alone. The condition of the historical
world is such that the balance cannot always be fully restored
through restitution and the paying of debts and dues. The fact
that some debts are not or cannot be paid is essential to the
world's actual condition. Now there are two aspects to this
situation.

Firstly: There are some obligations which, by their very
nature, cannot be acquitted in full, much as the one who is
thus indebted may be willing to do so. And as justice means to
give a person what is due to him, debitwn reddere, this
signifies that there exist relations of indebtedness beyond the
scope of the realization of justice. On the other hand, the very
relationships which are characterized by this disparity are also
the ones fundamental for human existence. And it is naturally
the just man, that is, the man who has a firm and constant will
to give each man what is his, who will experience that incon-
trovertible disparity with special acuteness.

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The Limits of Justice

It becomes immediately clear that what is meant here is first
and foremost man's relation to God. "Whatever man renders
to God is due, yet it cannot be equal, as though man rendered
to God as much as he owes Him!" This statement is not to be
understood as if man were a mere nonentity before God. In a
certain sense, Thomas says, something does belong to him,
something is "due" to him, which God does give to man. Some-
thing belongs to man "by reason of his nature and condition."
It is also true that man's nature is created, that is to say, it has
not come into existence by reason of anything other than God
Himself. 4< Now the work of divine justice always presupposes
the work of mercy- and is founded thereon." This must not be
taken to be merely an edifying thought. It is a very precise
description of man's condition in the face of God. Before any
subsequent claim is made by men, indeed even before the mere
possibility of such a human claim arises, comes the fact that
man has been made a gift by God (of his being) such that
his nature cannot ever "make it good," discharge it, "deserve"
it, or return it again. Man can never say to God: We are even.

This is the way in which "religion" as a human attitude, is
connected with justice. Thomas quite naturally speaks of reli-
gio within the context of his theory of the virtue of justice.
The significance of this connection and incidentally St.
Thomas has been taken to task for making it (the charge being
that he "subordinates" religion to one of the acquired virtues)
the significance of this connection is that the inner structure
of religious acts first becomes intelligible when man, by reason
of his relations with God, has recognized in the disparity be-
tween himself and God something which simply cannot be
obliterated, a disparity consisting in the fact that a debitwn
exists which his nature cannot repay by any human effort, no
matter how heroic it may be, a disparity which simply cannot
be overcome. Perhaps it might be possible for contemporary
man to gain a view of the reality and significance of sacrifice in

zoj

JUSTICE

the cult as a fundamental religious act if he approached it by
this rarely traveled path via the concept of justice, of res-
titution of something due. From this perspective, it is more
easily understood why the offering of sacrifice should be a
requirement of justice linked to man's condition as creatura.
Thomas has actually formulated this point: Oblatio sacrificii
pertmet ad ius mturale The obligation of sacrifice is an
obligation of natural law. I claim that this doctrine is more
easily understood if we set out with the idea of a debitum that
cannot be repaid, that is, with the notion of an actually exist-
ing obligation that nevertheless and by its very nature cannot
be wiped out. Here perhaps is the key to the extravagance
inherent in religious acts. Helplessness and impotency prompt
this extravagance; because it is impossible to do what "prop-
erly" ought to be done, an effort beyond the bounds of reason,
as it were, tries to compensate for the insufficiency. This ex-
plains the excesses of sacrificial offerings such as self-annihila-
tion, killing, burning. Socrates, in the Gorgias, says with a
most unclassical and indeed an almost unaccountable reckless-
ness (which it would be wrong to interpret simply as an ironi-
cal paradox) that a person, who has committed injustice must
scourge himself, allow himself to be imprisoned, go into exile,
accept execution, and yet with all that be the first one to
accuse himself, "so that he might be freed from the greatest of
evils, from injustice." Here, the old Athenian, who pursued
justice with such relentless ardor, speaks from the very same
assumption which prompts the doctors of Western Christen-
dom to speak of an excessus poenhentiae, an excess proper to
the true spirit of penance. In the Swmrn Theologica Thomas
formulates the following objection (and it is his answer to this
objection which is important to us at this point): The spirit of
penance and the spirit of justice are utterly different in that
justice clings to the reasonable mean, whereas penance actually
consists in an excessus. This is his answer to that problem. In
certain fundamental relations, for example in man's relation to

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The Limits of Justice

God, the equality that properly belongs to the concept of
justice, that is, equality between debt and payment, cannot be
achieved. Therefore, the one who is in debt strives to pay back
whatever is in his power to remit. "Yet this will not be
sufficient simply (simplidter). But only according to the ac-
ceptance of the higher one, and this is what is meant by ascrib-
ing excess to penance," hoc significatur fer excesswn^ qui attri-
buitur poenitentiae. Such excessus, then, seems to be a quality
of every properly religious act, of sacrifice, adoration, and
devotion. It is an attempt to respond to the fact of a relation
of indebtedness, an attempt that is the most "adequate" possi-
ble under the circumstances, but one that must always remain
"inadequate" because it cannot ever achieve a complete restitu-
tio. At this point it becomes possible to see why "justice" in
the realm of religion can even be perversity, as man boasts of
the restitution he makes: "I fast twice in a week. I give tithes
of all that I possess" (Luke 18, 12). The true attitude is,
rather: "So you also, when you shall have done all these things
that are commanded you, say: we are unprofitable servants"
(Luke 17, i o).

Thomas speaks of pietas as well as of religion, This is a term
which cannot be rendered with complete accuracy by our
derivation "piety"; and in the discussion which follows it must
be remembered that the same applies wherever, for want of a
more precise rendering, we have to use the anglicized term.
Piety, too, depends on something being due a person which of
its very nature cannot be fully repaid. Piety, likewise, is a
tendency of the soul which can be fully realized only if man
sees himself as the partner in an obligation which can never be
truly and fully acquitted, no matter how great the counter-
service rendered. "Piety" applies to the parent-child relation-
ship. "It is not possible to make to one's parents an equal
return of what one owes to them; and thus piety is annexed to

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JUSTICE

justice." This link indicates that only the just man, in his per-
sistent effort to effect a balance between debts and payments,
truly experiences the impossibility of full restitution and
"takes it to heart." Piety presupposes the virtue of justice.

Should we set ourselves the task of re-establishing piety as
an integral part of the ideal image of man (for it must be
frankly admitted that piety is no longer considered a quality
necessary to man's "righteousness," nor its lack as indicative of
man's inner disorder), the first step would have to be to re-
store this assumption: that the relation of children to parents
might be experienced by the children as an obligation beyond
the scope of full restitution. In a word, familial order would
have to be restored in actual fact and in people's estimation.
Of course, "familial order" embraces more than the relation
between parents and children; but unless it is restored, we
cannot expect that the inner experience of an unrepayable
obligation should bear as its fruit the feeling of piety.

In speaking of piety, Thomas does not confine himself to
the relation between parent and child; he includes man's rela-
tion to his country as well. "Man is debtor chiefly to his par-
ents and his country, after God. Wherefore, just as it belongs
to religion to give worship to God, so does it belong to piety
to give worship to one's parents and one's country." Here we
meet with a considerable difficulty. No matter how wide the
scope within which we comprise our obligations to our people
counting as goods the language with its inexhaustible treas-
ure of wisdom; the protection afforded by law and order; the
participation in whatever can be thought of as the "common
good" of a people yet it remains supremely difficult to ac-
cept the thought that it belongs to the image of full and true
humanity "to show reverence to one's country," cultum exbi-
bere patriae. And as we realize, on further thought, that this
difficulty cannot be overcome simply by resolution, that what
is implied here goes infinitely beyond the irreverence or the
ill-will or the illoyalty of the individual, we begin to measure

wS

The Limits of Justice

the extent of the deterioration in the ideal image of man and
man's communal life in Western civilization.

This comes into even clearer focus in the third concept
Thomas mentions alongside religio and pietas. It is a concept
equally concerned with man's reaction to a condition wherein
a debt cannot be canceled. It is the concept of "respect," of
observantia. The fact that this term has dropped out of cur-
rent usage, that we have no precise, contemporary equivalent
for it, indicates sufficiently that the concept itself has become
foreign to us. What, then, does observantia mean?

Observantia indicates the respect we feel inwardly and ex-
press outwardly toward those persons who are distinguished
by their office or by some dignity. We have only to lend an ear
to the ironic overtones currently connected with the words
"dignity" and "office" to realize at once how remote from us is
the reality which Western moral theory has formulated in the
concept observantia and made an integral part of the ideal
image of the ordered man and the ordered community. That
theory states that no man can give a recompense equivalent to
virtus virtus meaning, in this instance, the ability or power
(both moral and intellectual) of rightly administering an
office. Consequently, a situation arises in which the individual
cannot adequately satisfy an obligation. The individual, in his
private existence, profits from the proper administration of
public offices by the judge, the teacher, and the like. These
men and women create a well-ordered communal life. For this,
the individual finds himself indebted to the holders of such
offices, in a fashion which cannot be acquitted fully by "pay-
ment." It is this situation which is acknowledged by the "re-
spect" shown a person holding an office of public re-
sponsibility. The objection that irresponsible and inefficient
men may hold offices is of little weight. Thomas's answer is
that the office and, in a more general sense, the community as a
whole are honored in the person who holds the office.

The root of the matter is here evidently a conception of

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JUSTICE

man which takes the interdependence of individuals for granted
and sees in it nothing shameful or detrimental to the dignity of
the person. In any event, within the reality of the world, an
ordered community life without leadership and, therefore,
without "dependence," is unthinkable. And that holds true of
the family as well as of the state and for the state that is
democratically constituted as well as for a dictatorship. Gen-
erally speaking, a certain formal structure remains in force at
all times and in all places; and if it is not realized in the right
way, then it is realized in the wrong way. So that the question
can arise whether the void created by the disappearance of the
notion of observcmtia (a process certainly not due, however, to
mere whim and willfulness) may not have permitted the estab-
lishment of another form of relation between superior and
subordinate: the shameful expression of mutual contempt
which our current jargon renders in the terms "bossing" and
"bossed."

This, then, is one aspect of the fact that the world is not to
be kept in order through justice alone. There are obligations
and debts which of their very nature cannot be adequately
fulfilled and discharged. Only the just man takes pains to give
each man his due, and only the just man, accordingly, fully
experiences that disparity and undertakes to overcome it by
some kind of "excess." He fulfills the debitum in the clear
knowledge that he will never quite succeed in acquitting him-
self in full measure. For that reason the element of rationality
so proper to justice is linked so closely with the exaggeration
and, as it were, inadequacy which characterize religio y pietas,
and observantia* All three of these concepts are, therefore, an
abomination for rational thought.

Now we can map out a second way of interpreting the
proposition of the "limits" of justice. The proposition, in fact,
would come to mean that in order to keep the world going,
we must be prepared to give what is not in the strictest sense

//o

The Limits of Justice

obligatory (whereas, let us remember, the first interpretation
of the same proposition was that there are obligations in the
strictest sense of the term which man is nonetheless incapable
of fulfilling).

The just man, who has a more keenly felt experience of
these first inadequacies the more fully he realizes that his very
being is a gift, and that he is heavily indebted before God and
man, is also the man willing to give where there is no strict
obligation. He will be willing to give another man something
no one can compel him to give. Evidently, there are some
actions which one cannot be compelled to perform and which
are nonetheless obligatory in the strict sense of the word tell-
ing the truth, for instance. Expressing one's thanks to another
is giving him his just due, even though this obviously cannot
be enforced. But "being grateful" and "returning thanks" are
not of the same order as "paying" and "making restitution."
That is why Thomas says, quoting from Seneca, that a person
who wants to repay a gift too quickly with a gift in return is
an unwilling debtor and an ungrateful person.

So once again, the man who strives for justice, and he above
all, realizes (Thomas says) that fulfilling an obligation and
doing what he is really obliged to do are not all that is neces-
sary. Something more is required, something over and above,
such as liberality, affabilitas, kindness, if man's communal life is
to remain human. Here nothing more (and certainly nothing
less) is meant than friendliness in our everyday associations.
This "virtue" and Thomas relates it, too, to justice is, of
course, strictly neither due to another person nor can it be
rightfully claimed and demanded. Still it is impossible for men
to live together joyfully (delectabiliter) without it. "Now as
man could not live in society without truth, so likewise not
without joy."

I can well imagine how the average young man of our day
will respond to these ideas. That he may not enter into them

JUSTICE

with any great enthusiasm is only to be expected. For the
harsher and more "realistic" manner of present-day existence is
much more congenial to him. And it is true that we can only
with difficulty divest ourselves from the influence of the pre-
vailing atmosphere. Still, it is not the traditional doctrine of
justice but precisely our present-day atmosphere which is "un-
realistic." That is also the reason why it is so difficult to over-
come. But perhaps I may venture the suggestion that one
should try, without bias or rash preconceptions, simply to
listen to the exposition of the ideal image of justice and follow
it through to its final consequence. It is not inconceivable that
in the process of listening, it might suddenly become clear that
the harsher, more "realistic" approach is nothing but a sign of
poverty, of the steadily advancing erosion and aridity of in-
terhuman relationships. It might well become plausible that the
manifold and varied forms of partnership of which man is
capable (in so far as he is "just") constitute in fact the riches of
man and of the human community.

Communal life will necessarily become inhuman if man's
dues to man are determined by pure calculation. That the just
man give to another what is not due to him is particularly
important since injustice is the prevailing condition in our
world. Because men must do without things that are due to
them (since others are withholding them unjustly); since hu-
man need and want persist even though no specific person fails
to fulfill his obligation, and even though no binding obligation
can be construed for anyone; for these very reasons it is not
"just and right" for the just man to restrict himself to render-
ing only what is strictly due. For it is true, as Thomas says, that
"mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution"; but, also,
that "justice without mercy is cruelty."

Now it becomes possible to state the inner limits of justice:
"To be willing to watch over peace and harmony among men

112

The Limits of Justice

through the commandments of justice is not enough when
charity has not taken firm root among them."

A Schematic Representation of the Basic
Forms of Justice (cf. pp. 73-75)

THE SOCIAL WHOLE

Commutative Justice: Justice in Exchange

iustitia cormnutativa

THE INDIVIDUAL PERSON

THE INDIVIDUAL PERSON

FORTITUDE

"The praise of fortitude is dependent upon justice"

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

L Readiness to Fall in Battle

FORTITUDE presupposes vulnerability; without vulnera-
bility there is no possibility of fortitude. An angel cannot be
brave, because he is not vulnerable. To be brave actually means
to be able to suffer injury. Because man is by nature vul-
nerable, he can be brave.

By injury we understand every assault upon our natural
inviolability, every violation of our inner peace; everything
that happens to us or is done with us against our will; thus
everything in any way negative, everything painful and harm-
ful, everything frightening and oppressive.

The ultimate injury, the deepest injury, is death. And even
those injuries which are not fatal are prefigurations of death;
this extreme vioktion, this final negation, is reflected and effec-
tive in every lesser injury.

Thus, aU fortitude has reference to death. All fortitude
stands in the presence of death. Fortitude is basically readiness
to die or, more accurately, readiness to fall, to die, in battle.

Every injury to the natural being is fatal in its intention,
Thus every courageous action has as its deepest root the readi-
ness to die, even though, viewed from without, it may appear
entirely free from any thought of death. Fortitude that does
not reach down into the depths of the willingness to die is
spoiled at its root and devoid of effective power.

Readiness proves itself in taking a risk, and the culminating
point of fortitude is the witness of blood. The essential and the
highest achievement of fortitude is martyrdom, and readiness

"7

FORTITUDE

for martyrdom is the essential root of all Christian fortitude.
Without this readiness there is no Christian fortitude.

An age that has obliterated from its world view the notion
and the actual possibility of martyrdom must necessarily de-
base fortitude to the level of a swaggering gesture. One must
not overlook, however, that this obliteration can be effected in
various ways. Next to the timid opinion of the philisrine that
truth and goodness "prevail of themselves," without demand-
ing any personal commitment, there is the equally pernicious
easy enthusiasm which never wearies of proclaiming its "joy-
ful readiness for martyrdom." In both cases, the witness of
blood is equally bereft of reality.

The Church thinks otherwise on this matter. On the one
hand she declares: Readiness to shed one's blood for Christ is
imposed by the strictly binding law of God. "Man must be
ready to let himself be killed rather than to deny Christ or to
sin grievously.' 7 Readiness to die is therefore one of the founda-
tions of Christian life. But as regards a garrulous enthusiasm
for martyrdom, let us see what the Church of the martyrs
thought about it. In the "Martyrdom of St. Polycarp," one of
the oldest accounts from the period of persecution (about A.D.
150), sent by the "Church of God in Smyrna" to "all congrega-
tions of the holy and Catholic Church," a brief paragraph is
explicit:

"But one, a Phrygian called Quintus, became afraid when he
saw the wild animals. It was this very man who had presented
himself voluntarily to the court and persuaded others to do the
same. By repeated urging the Proconsul brought him to sac-
rifice and to forswear Christ. Therefore, brethren, we have
no praise for those who offer themselves voluntarily; this is not
the counsel of the Gospel."

The Church Father St. Cyprian, who was beheaded in 258,
declared to the Consul Paternus: "Our teaching forbids any-
one to report himself." It appears that the Fathers of the an-

Readiness to Fall in Battle

cient Church, from St. Cyprian to St. Gregory of Nazianzus
and St. Ambrose, actually assumed that God would most
readily withdraw the strength of endurance from those who,
arrogantly trusting their own resolve, thrust themselves into
martyrdom. Finally, St. Thomas Aquinas, in whose Summa an
article deals with the so-called "joys of fortitude," says that
the pain of martyrdom obscures even the spiritual joy in an
act pleasing to God, "unless the overflowing grace of God lift
the soul with exceeding strength to things divine."

In the face of the unromantic, harsh reality expressed in
these grave statements, all bombastic enthusiasm and oversim-
plification vanish into thin air. In this, then, does the actual
significance of the unyielding fact that the Church counts
readiness to shed one's blood among the foundations of Chris-
tian life become clearly manifest.

The suffering of injury is only a partial and foreground
aspect of fortitude. The brave man suffers injury not for its
own sake, but rather as a means to preserve or to acquire a
deeper, more essential intactness.

Christian consciousness has never lost the certainty that an
injury suffered in fighting for the good confers an intactness
which is more closely and intimately related to the core of
man's life than all purely natural serenity, though critics and
opponents of Christianity have not always succeeded in recog-
nizing and correctly estimating either this certainty or its rank
among Christian vital forces.

To the early Church, martyrdom appeared as a victory,
even though a fatal one. "He conquers for the Faith by his
death; living without the Faith he would be conquered," says
St. Maximus of Turin, a bishop of the fifth century, concern-
ing the witness of blood. And in Tertullian we read: "We are
victorious when we are stricken down; we escape when we are
led before the judge."

FORTITUDE

The fact that these victories are fatal or at least harmful
belongs to the incomprehensible and immutable conditions un-
der which the Christian and perhaps not only he exists in
the world. Thomas Aquinas seems to consider it to be almost
the nature of fortitude that it fights against the superior power
of evil, which the brave man can defeat only by his death or
injury. We shall take up this thought again later.

First and foremost: the brave man does not suffer injury for
its own sake. For the Christian no less than for the "natural"
man, "suffering for its own sake" is nonsense. The Christian
does not despise the things that are destroyed by injury. The
martyr does not simply consider life of little worth, though he
does value it cheaper than that for which he sacrifices it. The
Christian loves his life, says Thomas, not only with the natural,
life-asserting forces of the body, but with the moral forces of
the spiritual soul as well. Nor is this said by way of apology.
Man loves his natural life not because he is "a mere man"; he
loves it because and to the extent that he is a good man. The
same applies not only to life itself, but to everything included
in the range of natural intactness: joy, health, success, happi-
ness. All these things are genuine goods, which the Christian
does not toss aside and esteem but lightly unless, indeed, to
preserve higher goods, the loss of which w^ould injure more
deeply the inmost core of human existence.

The validity of all this is not impaired by the fact that
obviously the heroic life of the saints and great Christians is far
more than the result of a carefully calculated reckoning of
profit and loss.

This "tension" cannot be resolved in harmony; for the tem-
poral intellect and earthly existence it is irreversible and abso-
lute. But it is neither more nor less contradictory than the
sentence from the Gospels: Whoever loves his life will lose it
(John 12, 25). Nor is it more enigmatic than the astonishing
fact that a man as open to reality and to the world as Thomas

120

Readiness to Fall in Battle

Aquinas, who so often is quoted in support of practical opti-
mism, also teaches: The truly penetrating knowledge of
created things is associated with an abysmal sadness, an insu-
perable sadness which cannot be lifted by any natural force of
knowledge or will (according to Thomas it is this sadness the
Sermon of the Mount refers to when it is said: Blessed are
those who mourn, for they shall be comforted).

To try to cross the border into the unknowable is a hopeless
endeavor. These questions concerning the meaning and meas-
ure of the sacrifice of natural goods lead directly into the
impenetrable mystery inherent in the human condition: the
existence of a being both corporal and spiritual, created, ele-
vated, fallen, redeemed.

727

2. Fortitude Must Not
Trust Itself

IF THE SPECIFIC CHARACTER of fortitude consists in
suffering injuries in the battle for the realization of the good,
then the brave man must first know what the good is, and he
must be brave for the sake of the good. "It is for the sake of the
good that the brave man exposes himself to the danger of
death." "In overcoming danger, fortitude seeks not danger it-
self, but the realization of rational good." "To take death upon
oneself is not in itself praiseworthy, but solely because of its
subordination to good." It is not the injury that matters pri-
marily, but the realization of the good.

Therefore fortitude, though it puts man to the severest test,
is not the first and greatest of the virtues. For neither difficulty
nor effort causes virtue, but the good alone.

Fortitude therefore points to something prior. Essentially it
is something secondary, subordinate, deriving its measure from
something else. It has its place in a scale of meaning and value
where it does not rank first. Fortitude is not independent, it
does not stand by itself. It receives its proper significance only
in relation to something other than itself.

"Fortitude must not trust itself," says Ambrose.

Every child knows that in the list of cardinal virtues forti-
tude comes third. This enumeration is not accidental: it is a
meaningfully graded series.

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Fortitude Must Not Trust Itself

Prudence and justice precede fortitude. And that means, cat-
egorically: without prudence, without justice, there is no for-
titude; only he who is just and prudent can also be brave; to be
really brave is quite impossible without at the same time being
prudent and just also.

Nor is it possible to discuss the nature of fortitude without
examining its relation to prudence and justice.

To begin with, only the prudent man can be brave. Forti-
tude without prudence is not fortitude.

The growing surprise we experience as we examine this
proposition more closely marks the measure of our estrange-
ment from the self-evident foundations of the classical teach-
ings of the Church on human life. Only recently have we
hesitantly begun to rediscover what is expressed in this prop-
osition, namely, the proper place and the high rank that
belong to prudence.

To mention fortitude and prudence in the same breath
seems in a measure to contradict modern man's notion of pru-
dence and also of fortitude. This is partially due to the fact
that current usage does not designate quite the same thing by
"prudence" as classical theology understood by prudentia and
discretio. The term "prudence" has come to mean rather the
slyness which permits the cunning and "shrewd" tactician to
evade any dangerous risk to his person, and thus escape injury
and even the possibility of injury. To us, prudence seems to be
that false "discretion" and "cool consideration" conjured up
by the coward in order to be able to shirk the test. To "pru-
dence" thus conceived, fortitude seems plainly unwise or stu-
pid.

In truth, fortitude becomes fortitude only through being "in-
formed" by prudence. The double meaning of "inform" is here
very apt. "Inform" in the current usage means primarily "in-
struct"; secondly, as a technical term of scholasticism, taken
directly from the Latin informare, it means "to give inner form

123

FORTITUDE

to." Referring to the relation between prudence and fortitude,
the two meanings interlock: in the instruction of fortitude by
prudence the former receives from the latter its inner form,
that is, its specific character as a virtue.

The virtue of fortitude has nothing to do with a purely
vital, blind, exuberant, daredevil spirit. (On the other hand it
presupposes a healthy vitality, perhaps more than any other
virtue.) The man who recklessly and indiscriminately courts
any kind of danger is not for that reason brave; all he proves is
that, without preliminary examination or distinction, he con-
siders all manner of things more valuable than the personal
intactness which he risks for their sake. The nature of forti-
tude is not determined by risking one's person arbitrarily, but
only by a sacrifice of self in accordance with reason, that is,
with the true nature and value of real things. "Not in any way
whatsoever, but according to reason." Genuine fortitude pre-
supposes a correct evaluation of things, of the things that one
risks as \vell as of those which one hopes to preserve or gain
by the risk.

Pericles, in the lofty words of his speech for the fallen he-
roes, expressed Christian wisdom also: "For this too is our way:
to dare most liberally where we have reflected best. With
others, only ignorance begets fortitude; and reflection but be-
gets hesitation."

Prudence gives their inner form to all the other cardinal
virtues: justice, fortitude, and temperance. But these three are
not equally dependent upon prudence. Fortitude is less di-
rectly informed by prudence than justice; justice is the first
word of prudence, fortitude the second; prudence informs
fortitude, as it were, through justice. Justice is based solely
upon the recognition of reality achieved by prudence; forti-
tude, however, is based upon prudence and justice together.

Thomas Aquinas gives the following explanation for the hier-

124

Fortitude Must Not Trust Itself

archy of the cardinal virtues: the actual good of man is his
self-realization in accordance with reason, that is, in accord-
ance with the truth of real things. (Let us keep in mind that
for the classical theology of the Church, reason always and
only means the "passage" to reality. We must avoid the tempta-
tion of transferring our justifiably contemptuous lack of
confidence in the dictatorial "reason" of the idealist philoso-
phers of the nineteenth century to the ratio of scholasticism,
always closely related to reality.) The essence of this "good of
reason" is conferred in the directive cognition of prudence. In
the virtue of justice, this good of reason becomes transformed
into actual existence. "It is the function of justice to carry out
the order of reason in all human affairs." The other virtues
fortitude and temperance serve the conservation of this
good; it is their function to preserve man from declining from
the good. Among these two latter virtues, fortitude takes pre-
cedence.

Under the direction of prudence, the good of man becomes
compellingly evident. Justice primarily brings about the actual
realization of this good. Fortitude therefore, by itself, is not
the primary realization of the good. But fortitude protects this
realization or clears the road for it.

So w 7 e cannot simply say that only the prudent man can be
brave. We have further to see that a "fortitude" which is not
subservient to justice is just as false and unreal as a "fortitude"
which is not informed by prudence.

Without the "just cause" there is no fortitude. "Not the
injury, but the cause makes martyrs," says St. Augustine.
"Man does not expose his life to mortal danger, except to
maintain justice. Therefore the praise of fortitude depends
upon justice," says St. Thomas. And in his Book of Duties, St.
Ambrose says: "Fortitude without justice is a lever of evil."

3. Endurance and Attack

TO BE BRAVE is not the same as to have no fear. Indeed,
fortitude actually rules out a certain kind of fearlessness,
namely the sort of fearlessness that is based upon a false ap-
praisal and evaluation of reality. Such fearlessness is either blind
and deaf to real danger, or else it is the result of a perversion
of love. For fear and love depend upon each other: a person
who does not love, does not fear either, and he who loves
falsely, fears falsely. One who has lost the will to live does not
fear death. But this indifference to life is far removed from
genuine fortitude; it is, indeed, an inversion of the natural
order. Fortitude recognizes, acknowledges, and maintains the
natural order of things. The brave man is not deluded: he sees
that the injury he suffers is an evil. He does not undervalue
and falsify reality; he "likes the taste" of reality as it is, real; he
does not love death nor does he despise life. Fortitude presup-
poses in a certain sense that man is afraid of evil; its essence lies
not in knowing no fear, but in not allowing oneself to be
forced into evil by fear, or to be kept by fear from the realiza-
tion of good.

Whoever exposes himself to a danger even for the sake of
good without knowledge of its perils, either from instinctive
optimism ("nothing can possibly happen to me") or from firm
confidence in his own natural strength and fighting fitness,
does not on that account possess the virtue of fortitude.

It is possible to be genuinely brave only when all those real
or apparent assurances fail, that is, when the natural man is
afraid; not, however, when he is afraid out of unreasoning

126

Endurance and Attack

timidity, but when, with a clear view of the real situation
facing him, he cannot help being afraid, and, indeed, with
good reason. If in this supreme test, in face of which the
braggart falls silent and every heroic gesture is paralyzed, a
man walks straight up to the cause of his fear and is not de-
terred from doing that which is good; if, moreover, he does so
for the sake of good which ultimately means for the sake of
God, and therefore not from ambition or from fear of being
taken for a coward this man, and he alone, is truly brave.

To maintain this position is not to depreciate in the least the
value of natural optimism and natural strength and fighting
fitness; neither is their vital significance or their great ethical
importance thereby diminished. It is, however, important to
understand wherein lies the actual nature of fortitude as a vir-
tue, and to realize that it lies beyond the realm of the merely
vital. In the face of martyrdom, all natural optimism becomes
senseless, and the hands of the man most fit for battle are,
literally, tied. But as martyrdom is the essential and the highest
achievement of fortitude, it is only in this supreme test that its
true nature stands revealed and the yardstick for its less heroic
realizations is provided (for it belongs to the nature of virtue
to fix its gaze upon the ultimate) .

Fortitude consequently does not mean mere fearlessness.
That man alone is brave who cannot be forced, through fear
of transitory and lesser evils, to give up the greater and actual
good, and thereby bring upon himself that which is ultimately
and absolutely dreadful. This fear of the ultimately dreadful
belongs, as the "reverse" of the love of God, to the absolutely
necessary foundations of fortitude (and of all virtue): "He
who feareth the Lord will tremble at nothing' 7 (Eccles. 34,
16).

So whoever realizes the good by facing what is dreadful, by
facing injury, is truly brave. This "facing" the dreadful has

127

FORTITUDE

two aspects, which form the foundation for the two basic acts
of fortitude: endurance and attack.

Endurance is more of the essence of fortitude than attack.
This proposition of St. Thomas may seem strange to us, and
many of our contemporaries may glibly dismiss it as the expres-
sion of a "typically medieval" "passivist" philosophy and doc-
trine. Such an interpretation, however, would hit wide of the
mark. Thomas in no way means to rate endurance in itself
higher than attack, or to propose that in every case it is braver
to endure than to attack. What, then, does his proposition
mean? It can mean only that the true "position" of fortitude is
that extremely perilous situation described above, in which to
suffer and endure is objectively the only remaining possibility
of resistance, and that it is in this situation that fortitude pri-
marily and ultimately proves its genuine character. It is of
course an integral part of St. Thomas's conception of the
world, of the Christian conception of the world, that man may
be placed in a position to be injured or killed for the realiza-
tion of the good and that evil, considered in terms of this
world, may appear as an overwhelming power. This possibil-
ity, we know, has been obliterated from the world view of
enlightened liberalism.

To suffer and endure is, furthermore, something passive
only in. an external sense. Thomas himself raises the objection:
If fortitude is a perfection, then how can enduring be its essen-
tial act? For enduring is pure passivity, and active doing is
more perfect than passive suffering. And he replies: Enduring
comprises a strong activity of the soul, namely, a vigorous
grasping of and clinging to the good; and only from this stout-
hearted activity can the strength to support the physical and
spiritual suffering of injury and death be nourished. It cannot
be denied that a timid Christianity, overwhelmed and fright-
ened by the un-Christian criteria of an ideal of fortitude that is
activistically heroic, has smothered this fact in the general con-

128

Endurance and Attack

seriousness, and misconstrued it in the sense of a vague and
resentful passivism.

The same applies, and even to a higher degree, to the cur-
rent notion of the virtue of patience. For Thomas, patience is a
necessary component of fortitude. We are apt to regard this
co-ordination of patience with fortitude as incongruous, not
only because we easily mistake the nature of fortitude for
activism, but first and foremost because in our conception pa-
tience (in sharp contrast to the ideas of classical theology) has
come to mean an indiscriminate, self-immolating, crabbed, joy-
less, and spineless submission to whatever evil is met with or,
worse, deliberately sought out. Patience, however, is some-
thing quite other than the indiscriminate acceptance of any
and every evil: "The patient man is not the one who does not
flee from evil, but the one who does not allow himself to be
made inordinately sorrowful thereby." To be patient means to
preserve cheerfulness and serenity of mind in spite of injuries
that result from the realization of the good. Patience does not
imply the exclusion of energetic, forceful activity, but simply,
explicitly and solely the exclusion of sadness and confusion of
heart. Patience keeps man from the danger that his spirit may
be broken by grief and lose its greatness. Patience, therefore, is
not the tear-veiled mirror of a "broken" life (as one might
easily assume in the face of what is frequently presented and
praised under this name), but the radiant embodiment of ulti-
mate integrity. In the words of Hildegard of Bingen, patience
is "the pillar which nothing can soften." And Thomas, follow-
ing Holy Scripture (Luke 21, 19), summarizes with superb
precision: "Through patience man possesses his soul."

The man who is brave is for that very reason patient as well.
But the reverse proposition cannot be said to be true: patience
by itself does not constitute the whole of fortitude, no more,
nay, less than does endurance, to which patience is subordi-
nated. The brave man not only knows how to bear inevitable

FORTITUDE

evil with equanimity; he will also not hesitate to "pounce
upon" evil and to bar its way, if this can reasonably be done.
This attitude requires readiness to attack, courage, self-
confidence, and hope of success; "the trust that is a part of
fortitude signifies the hope w r hich a man puts in himself: natu-
rally in subordination to God." These things are so self-evi-
dent that we need not waste words upon them.

The fact, however, that Thomas assigns to (just) wrath a
positive relation to the virtue of fortitude has become largely
unintelligible and unacceptable to present-day Christianity and
its non-Christian critics. This lack of comprehension may be
explained partly by the exclusion, from Christian ethics, of the
component of passion (with its inevitably physical aspect) as
something alien and incongruous an exclusion due to a kind
of intellectual stoicism and partly by the fact that the explo-
sive activity which reveals itself in wrath is naturally repug-
nant to good behavior regulated by "bourgeois" standards. So
Thomas, who is equally free from both these errors, says: The
brave man uses wrath for his own act, above all in attack, "for
it is peculiar to wrath to pounce upon evil. Thus fortitude and
wrath w r ork directly upon each other."

Not only as regards the "passive," but also as regards the
pronouncedly "aggressive," the classical doctrine of fortitude
exceeds the narrow range of conventional notions.

Yet the fact remains that that w r hich is preponderantly of
the essence of fortitude is neither attack nor self-confidence
nor wrath, but endurance and patience. Not because (and this
cannot be sufficiently stressed) patience and endurance are in
themselves better and more perfect than attack and self-
confidence, but because, in the world as it is constituted, it is
only in the supreme test, which leaves no other possibility of
resistance than endurance, that the inmost and deepest strength
f man reveals itself. Power is so manifestly of the very struc-

130

Endurance and Attack

ture of the world that endurance, not wrathful attack, is the
ultimately decisive test of actual fortitude, which, essentially,
is nothing else than to love and to realize that which is good, in
the face of injury or death, and undeterred by any spirit of
compromise. It is one of the fundamental laws of a world
plunged into disorder by original sin that the uttermost
strength of the good manifests itself in powerlessness. And the
Lord's words, "Behold, I send you as sheep among wolves"
(Matt. 10, 1 6), continue to mark the position of the Christian
in the world, even to this day.

This thought and this reality may appear virtually unac-
ceptable to each "new generation." The reluctance to acknowl-
edge them and the inner revolt against the "resignation" of
those who have "resigned themselves" are, indeed, hallmarks of
genuine youthfulness. In this revolt, at least, there lives the
ineradicable human sense of the original and essential order of
creation, an intimation that no genuine Christian can lose, even
though he has learned to acknowledge the spiritually inevitable
disorder caused by original sin, not only as an idea to be
conceived but as a reality to be experienced. Implicit in the
aforesaid is the fact that there are also non-Christian or pre-
Christian modes of "putting up with" which it may be the per-
petual mission of youth to overcome, and specifically of Chris-
tian youth.

Further: the figure of the "sheep among wolves" refers
above all to the hidden depth of Christian existence in the
world, although, as an actual possibility, it forms the founda-
tion of all concrete conflicts, determining and coloring them
all. It is disclosed in its naked and absolute reality, however,
only in cases of the supreme test; then, indeed, the pure and
unadulterated realization of this figure is demanded of every
Christian. On the surface, above this depth, there lies the broad
field of active worldly endeavor and the struggle for the real-

131

FORTITUDE

izatlon of the good against the opposition of stupidity,
laziness, blindness, and malevolence. Christ Himself, of whom
the Fathers of the Church say that His agony is the source of
the strength of the martyrs, and whose earthly life was en-
tirely permeated and formed by His readiness for sacrificial
death, to which He went "like a lamb to the slaughter" Christ
drove the money-changers from the temple with a whip; and
when the most patient of men stood before the high priest and
was struck in the face by a servant, He did not turn the other
cheek, but answered: u lf there was harm in what I said, tell us
what was harmful in it, but if not, why dost thou strike me?"
(John 18,23).

Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on St. John's Gospel,
has pointed to the apparent contradiction between this scene
(as well as the one from the Acts of the Apostles, referred to
below) and the injunction of the Sermon on the Mount: "I say
unto you, resist not evil; if one strike you on the right cheek,
offer him the other" (Matt. 5, 39). A passivistic exegesis is
quite unable to solve this "contradiction," Thomas explains (in
agreement with Augustine): "Holy Scripture must be under-
stood in the light of what Christ and the saints have actually
practiced. Christ did not offer His other cheek, nor Paul
either. Thus to interpret the injunction of the Sermon on the
Mount literally is to misunderstand it. This injunction signifies
rather the readiness of the soul to bear, if it be necessary, such
things and worse, without bitterness against the attacker. This
readiness our Lord showed, when He gave up His body to be
crucified. That response of the Lord was useful, therefore, for
our instruction."

Similarly, the Apostle Paul, although his whole life was ori-
ented toward martyrdom, did not suffer it in silence when, at
the command of the high priest, he was "struck on the mouth"
by the bystanders for his bold speech before the Sanhedrin;
rather, he answered the high priest: "It is God that will smite
thee for the whitened wall that thou art; thou art sitting there

132

Endurance and Attack

to judge me according to the law, and wilt thou break the law
by ordering them to smite me? " (Acts 23,3).

The readiness to meet the supreme test by dying in patient
endurance so that the good may be realized does not exclude
the willingness to fight and to attack. Indeed, it is from this
readiness that the springs of action in the Christian receive that
detachment and freedom which, in the last analysis, are denied
to every sort of tense and strained activism.

133

4. Vital, Moral, Mystic Fortitude

THE VIRTUE OF FORTiTCDE keeps man from so loving
his life that he loses it.

This principle that he who loves his life loses it is valid
for every order of human reality: in the "pre-moral" order of
mental health, in the actually "moral" order of natural ethics,
in the "supermoral" order of supernatural life. In all three
orders, therefore, a special significance attaches to fortitude.
Only in the second order is it a "human virtue" in the strict
sense; in the first it ranks below, and in the third, above it.

All three orders can be clearly separated only in the mind;
in the reality of human existence they interlock. No one can
say in a specific case where the sphere of moral guilt ends and
the sphere of mental and psychical illness begins; and in the
Christian era there is no such thing as "purely natural" virtue
without actual reference to the order of grace. Thus fortitude,
too, ranges through all these orders in what may be called a
unified human attitude of mind and being.

To the modern science of psychology, we owe the insight
that the lack of courage to accept injury and the incapability
of self-sacrifice belong to the deepest sources of psychic
illness. All neuroses seem to have as a common symptom an
egocentric anxiety, a tense and self-centered concern for secu-
rity, the inability to "let go"; in short, that kind of love for
one's own life that leads straight to the loss of life. It is a very

Vital, Moral, Mystic Fortitude

significant and by no means accidental fact that modern psy-
chology frequently quotes the Scriptural words: "He who
loves his life will lose it." Above and beyond their immediate
religious significance they denote accurately the psychiatric-
characterological diagnosis: that "the ego' will become in-
volved in ever greater danger the more carefully one tries to
protect it."

This pre-moral fortitude, as a source of psychic health
closely connected with the sphere of vitality, is, in a manner
beyond conscious control, linked to, and permeated by, prop-
erly moral fortitude; the moral force which, by virtue of m-
ima ^omw cordons., works its formative effect in the sphere of
the natural. On the other hand, and in a no less complicated
interplay, the pre-moral fortitude seems to be the prerequisite
and foundation of the essential spiritual fortitude of the man
and the Christian, which grows from the soil of a fortitude
rooted in the vital forces.

Christian fortitude, in the spiritual and intellectual sense,
develops in proportion to the degrees of perfection proper to
the interior life.

Although the supernatural ranks in essence incomparably
higher than the order of nature, the former is, to begin with,
less perfectly "in the possession" of man. The natural vital
powers of body and mind are man's immediate and, so to
speak, wholly subservient property; the supernatural life of
faith, hope, and charity is only indirectly Ids own. Only by
the unfolding of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are be-
stowed on the Christian together with the theological virtue of
charity, can supernatural life become our "full possession" to
such an extent that, as second nature, it urges us as though
"naturally" on to sanctity.

Accordingly, the degrees of perfection of Christian forti-
tude correspond to the degrees of unfolding of the gift of

'55

FORTITUDE

fortitude the fortitude we owe to grace, and which belongs
to the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.

St. Thomas Aquinas distinguishes three degrees of perfec-
tion in fortitude (as in all cardinal virtues). The lowest
which on the next higher degree is not "left behind" but ab-
sorbed is the "political" fortitude of everyday, normal com-
munity life. Almost everything that has so far been said about
fortitude (excepting the references to martyrdom) applies to
this in the Christian sense initial degree. On the road to
inner progress from the first to the second and "purgatorial"
purifying degree of fortitude, the man intent on a higher real-
ization of the divine image in himself crosses the threshold of
the properly mystical life. Mystical life, however, is nothing
but the more perfect unfolding of the supernatural love of
God and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The third degree of
fortitude the fortitude of the purified spirit already trans-
formed in its essence is attained only on the greatest heights
of earthly sanctity, which are already a beginning of eternal
life.

Of "purgatorial fortitude," which for the average Christian
represents the highest attainable degree of fortitude, Thomas
says that it gives the soul the power to remain undaunted by
its entrance into the higher world. At first glance this seems to
be a very strange proposition. But it becomes more intelligible
when one considers the unanimous experience of all great mys-
tics: at the beginning and before the final perfection of the
mystic life, the soul is exposed as to a "dark night" of the
senses and the spirit, in which it must think itself abandoned
and lost like a man drowning on the open sea. St. John of the
Cross, the mystic doctor, says that in the "dark fire" of this
night which is a true purgatory whose torment ineffably ex-
ceeds any self-imposed penance that an ascetic could imagine

V ital 9 Moral, Mystic Fortitude

God cleanses with inexorably healing hand the senses and
the spirit from the dross of sin.

The Christian who dares to take the leap into this darkness
and relinquishes the hold of his anxiously grasping hand, to-
tally abandoning himself to God's absolute control, thus real-
izes in a very strict sense the nature of fortitude; for the sake
of love's perfection he walks straight up to dreadfulness; he is
not afraid to lose his life for Life's sake; he is ready to be slain
by the sight of the Lord ("No man beholdeth me and liveth"
Ex. 33,20).

At this point the true significance of the expression "heroic
virtue" first becomes evident: the basis of this stage of the
inner life, whose nature is the unfolding of the gifts of the
Holy Ghost, is in fact fortitude, the virtue which is in a very
special sense, primarily and by name, an "heroic" virtue, that
is, the fortitude exalted by grace, the fortitude of the mystic
life. The great teacher of Christian mysticism, Teresa of Avila,
says that fortitude ranks first and foremost among the prerequi-
sites of perfection. In her autobiography we find the decisively
formulated statement: "I assert that an imperfect human being
needs more fortitude to pursue the way of perfection than
suddenly to become a martyr,"

On this higher degree of fortitude, which the martyr attains,
as it were, in one powerful, audacious leap, the natural forces
of endurance fail. They are replaced by the Holy Spirit of
fortitude, which works "in us without us" that we may over-
come the darkness and reach the steep shore of light. When, in
the experience of extreme anguish, the strengthening and com-
forting illumination of natural certainties the metaphysical
ones not excepted wanes and changes into the half-light of
uncertainty, He gives man that unshakable though veiled super-
natural certainty of the final happy victory, without which, in
the supernatural order, battle and injury are objectively un-

FORTITUDE

bearable. In the gift of fortitude the Holy Spirit pours into the
soul a confidence that overcomes all fear: namely, that He will
lead man to eternal life, which is the goal and purpose of all
good actions, and the final deliverance from every kind of
danger.

This superhuman mode of fortitude is in the absolute sense a
"gift." The doctors of the Church have always applied to its
victories the following words of Scripture: "For they got not
possession of the land by their own sword: neither did their
own arm save them. But thy right hand and thy arm, and the
light of thy countenance: because thou wast pleased with
them" (Psalm 43).

St. Augustine and St. Thomas associate with the spiritual
gift of fortitude the beatitude "Blessed are they who hunger
and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled."

The supernatural gift of fortitude by no means frees the
Christian from hunger and thirst for justice; it does not release
him from the painful necessity of taking upon himself, in the
battle for the realization of good, injury and even, in ex-
treme cases, death. But the doctrinal truth of ultimate "satia-
tion," which is only "theoretically" known and possessed at
the initial stages of fortitude and of the interior life in general,
rises at this higher stage to an evidence so direct and compel-
ling as to resemble the experience of sight, hearing, and touch
in the natural order: so that on the deepest ground of hunger
and thirst, which incidentally lose nothing of their consuming
reality, the overwhelming certainty of "being filled" flashes
forth in such triumphant reality that this certainty is itself
"blessedness."

These three basic forms of human fortitude the pre-moral,
the properly ethical, and the mystical all realize the same
essential image: man accepts insecurity; he surrenders
confidently to the governance of higher powers; he "risks" his

Vital, Moral, Mystic Fortitude

immediate well-being; he abandons the tense, egocentric hold
of a timorous anxiety. The uniformity of this attitude of mind
and being, which underlies all three modes of fortitude, exists
in spite of the differences that separate the sphere of mental
health from those of the morally good and of the mystic life.
These differences are real, and they should not be blurred. But
the tendency has been too often to isolate each sphere from
the others. Their inner, essential, and reciprocal connections
have not been sufficiently noticed. For they it is which, in the
concrete reality of human existence, relate the vital and the
psychical spheres to the moral and mystic ones in a manner,
however, whose complicated interactions we in all probability
will never wholly grasp.

Whoever, in the vital and psychical sphere, egocentrically
strains toward complete security for himself, and is incapable
of daring a venturesome undertaking, will presumably also fail
when to realize the good demands the suffering of injury or,
worse, of death. But here we touch a sphere in which that
which is essential is never wont to appear.

With this weighty reservation in mind, it may now be said
that an education aiming at the development of physical cour-
age (which ought not to be simply equated with "physical
training") belongs in a specific sense to the essential founda-
tion of moral fortitude. On the other hand, the cure of a
mental illness which has overanxiety as its root, will rarely be
successful without the simultaneous moral "conversion" of the
whole man. This in turn, for the eye firmly directed on con-
crete existence, cannot develop in an area cut off from grace,
the sacraments, the mystical life.

This living connection of moral fortitude in the stricter
sense with supermoral fortitude of the mystic order is of the
very greatest importance. Notably departing from the classical

139

FORTITUDE

theology of the Church, the moral teachings of the last cen-
tury have separated mystical life as in essence "extraordinary"
from the "ordinary" ethical sphere, and have consequently
obstructed our view of the continuity in the unfolding of the
supernatural life,

It is clear that political fortitude, which consists mainly in
combating outward resistance in order to help justice to realiza-
tion, is of a different order than "mystic" fortitude, by virtue
of which the soul, for the sake of union with God, ventures
into the painful darkness of "passive purification." But quite
apart from the consideration that the same basic human atti-
tude of abandonment of self is realized in both kinds of forti-
tude, one must not overlook the fact that the more strictly
moral fortitude of the Christian reaches essentially beyond it-
self, into the mystic order, which, as has been said repeatedly,
is nothing other than the more perfect unfolding of the super-
natural life that every Christian receives in baptism. Mystic
fortitude, on the other hand, reaches so effectively into the
moral (and the vital-psychical) sphere, that one may say that
the inmost strength of "political" fortitude derives from the
hidden abandonment of man to God, from his unconditional
acceptance of insecurity, which is the risk one must take in the
mystical life.

Wherever a "new generation" takes up the attack against the
resisting forces of evil or against a tense obsession with a secu-
rity which clings to the delusion that the disharmony of the
world is fundamentally curable by cautious and correct "tac-
tics," it is above all necessary to maintain a lively and vigilant
awareness that such fighting can only reach beyond sound and
fury if it draws its strongest forces from the fortitude of the
mystical life, which dares to submit unconditionally to the
governance of God. Without a consciously preserved connec-
tion with these reserves of strength, all struggle for the good
must lose its genuineness and the inner conviction of victory,

140

Vital, Moral, Mystic Fortitude

and in the end can lead only to the noisy sterility of spiritual
pride.

The supernatural fortitude bestowed by grace, which is a
gift of the Holy Spirit, pervades and crowns all other
"natural" modes of Christian fortitude. For to be brave means
not only to suffer injury and death in the struggle for the
realization of the good, but also to hope for victory. Without
this hope, fortitude is impossible. And the higher this victory,
the more certain the hope for it, the more man risks to gain it.
The supernatural gift of fortitude, the gift of the Holy Spirit,
however, is nourished by the surest hope of the final and high-
est victory, in which all other victories, by their hidden ref-
erence to it, are perfected the hope of life eternal

No doubt to die without hope is harder and more fearful
than dying in the hope of eternal life. But w r ho would be
willing to accept such nonsense as this: that it is braver to
enter death without hope? Yet whoever takes not the end but
the effort as the good can hardly avoid this nihilistic conclu-
sion. As St. Augustine says, it is not injury that makes the
martyr, but the fact that his action is in accordance with truth.
What matters is not the ease or the difficulty, but "the truth of
things." What matters is the reality of eternal life. And the
"rectitude" of hope lies in the fact that it corresponds to this
reality.

On the other hand, it is hope that, in the case of martyrdom,
is put to its most revealing and unsparing test. It is one thing
to say and suppose that one lives in hope of life eternal, and it
is another thing really to hope. What hope actually is, no one
can know more profoundly than he who must prove himself
in the supreme test of ultimate fortitude. And to no other will
it be more convincingly revealed that hope for eternal life is
properly a gift, and that without this gift there can be no such
thing as truly Christian fortitude.

TEMPERANCE

/. Temperance and Moderation

WHAT HAVE THE WORDS "temperance" and "modera-
tion" come to mean in today's parlance?

The meaning of "temperance" has dwindled miserably to
the crude significance of "temperateness in eating and
drinking." We may add that this term is applied chiefly, if not
exclusively, to the designation of mere quantity, just as "intem-
perance" seems to indicate only excess. Needless to say, "tem-
perance" limited to this meaning cannot even remotely hint at
the true nature of temperantia, to say nothing of expressing its
full content. Temper antia has a wider significance and a higher
rank: it is a cardinal virtue, one of the four hinges on which
swings the gate of life.

Nor does "moderation" correspond to the meaning and rank
of tempermtia. Moderation mainly relates to admonishing the
wrathful to moderate their anger. Though the moderation of
anger belongs to the realm of temperantia, it is only a part of
it. If we leave the tepid atmosphere of a moral theology mis-
trustful of all passion to enter the more realistic and bracing
climate of the Sutnma Theologica, we find, surprisingly, that
the passio of anger is defended rather than condemned. Fur-
ther: the current concept of moderation is dangerously close
to fear of any exuberance. We all know that the term "prudent
moderation" tends to crop up when the love of truth or some
other generous impulse threatens to take an extreme risk. This
emasculated concept of moderation has no place in a doctrine
which asserts that the love of God fountainhead of all virtues

TEMPERANCE

knows neither mean nor measure. "Moderation," also, is too
negative in its implication and signifies too exclusively re-
striction, curtailment, curbing, bridling, repression all again
in contradiction to the classic prototype of the fourth cardinal
virtue.

A study of the linguistic meaning of the Greek term, sophro-
syne, and of the Latin temperantia reveals a much wider range
of significance. The original meaning of the Greek word em-
braces "directing reason" in the widest sense. And the Latin
stays close to this far-ranging significance. In St. Paul's First
Epistle to the Corinthians (12, 24^) we read: Deus temperavit
corpus. "Thus God has established a harmony in the body,
giving special honor to that which needed it most. There was
to be no want of unity in the body; all the different parts of it
were to make each other's welfare their common care." The
primary and essential meaning of temperare, therefore, is this:
to dispose various parts into one unified and ordered whole.

146

2. Selfless Self-Preservation

AQUINAS SAYS that the second meaning of temperance is
"serenity of the spirit" (quies animi). It is obvious that this
proposition does not imply a purely subjective state of mental
calm or the tranquil satisfaction which is the by-product of an
unassuming, leisurely life in a narrow circle. Nor does it mean
a mere absence of irritation, or dispassionate equanimity. All
this need not go deeper than the surface of the intellectual and
spiritual life. What is meant is the serenity that fills the inmost
recesses of the human being, and is the seal and fruit of order.
The purpose and goal of temferantia is man's inner order,
from which alone this "serenity of spirit" can flow forth.
"Temperance" signifies the realizing o f this order within one-
self.

Tempermtia is distinguished from the other cardinal virtues
by the fact that it refers exclusively to the active man himself.
Prudence looks to all existent reality; justice to the fellow man;
the man of fortitude relinquishes, in self-forgetfulness, his
own possessions and his life. Temperance, on the other hand,
aims at each man himself. Temperance implies that man should
look to himself and his condition, that his vision and his will
should be focused on himself. That notion that the primordial
images of all things reside in God has been applied by Aquinas
to the cardinal virtues also: the primordial divine mode of

TEMPERANCE

temperantia, he states, is the "turning of the Divine Spirit to
Itself."

For man there are two modes of this turning toward the
self: a selfless and a selfish one. Only the former makes for self-
preservation; the latter is destructive. In modern psychology
we find this thought: genuine self-preservation is the turning
of man toward himself, with the essential stipulation, however,
that in this movement he does not become fixed upon himself.
("Whoever fixes his eyes upon himself gives no light.") Tem-
perance is selfless self-preservation. Intemperance is self-
destruction through the selfish degradation of the powers
which aim at self-preservation.

It is a commonplace though nonetheless mysterious truth
that man's inner order unlike that of the crystal, the flower,
or the animal is not a simply given and self-evident reality,
but rather that the same forces from which human existence
derives its being can upset that inner order to the point of
destroying the spiritual and moral person. That this cleavage
in human nature (provided we do not try to persuade our-
selves that it does not exist) finds its explanation only in the
acceptance by faith of the revealed truth of original sin, is too
vast a subject to be discussed here. It seems necessary,
however, to consider more closely the structure of that inner
order and disorder.

Most difficult to grasp is the fact that it is indeed the essen-
tial human self that is capable of throwing itself into disorder
to the point of self-destruction. For man is not really a bat-
tlefield of conflicting forces and impulses which conquer one
another; and if we say that the sensuality "in us" gets the
better of our reason, this is only a vague and metaphorical
manner of speaking. Rather it is always our single self that is
chaste or unchaste, temperate or intemperate, self-preserving
or self-destructive. It is always the decisive center of the

148

Selfless Self-Preservation

whole, indivisible person by which the inner order is upheld
or upset. "It is not the good my will preserves, but the evil my
will disapproves, that 7 find myself doing" (Rom. 7, 19).

Also, the very powers of the human being which most
readily appear as the essential powers of self-preservation, self-
assertion, and self-fulfillment are at the same time the first to
work the opposite: the self-destruction of the moral person. In
the Summa Theologioa we find the almost uncanny formula-
tion: the powers whose ordering is the function of temperance
"can most easily bring unrest to the spirit, because they belong
to the essence of man."

But how can it be that the very powers of self-preservation
are so close to becoming destructive? How can it be that the
man who seeks himself can miss himself in his very seeking?
And how, on the other hand, can self-love be selfless?

A narrow gap of understanding is wedged open by a prop-
osition of St. Thomas's, which may confidently be called the
basis of a metaphysical philosophy of active man. It states that
to love God more than himself is in accordance with the natu-
ral being of man, as of every creature, and with his will as
well. Consequently, the offense against the love of God derives
its self-destructive sharpness from the fact that it is likewise in
conflict with the nature and the natural will of man himself. If
he loves nothing so much as himself, man misses and perverts,
with inner necessity, the purpose inherent in self-love as in all
love: to preserve, to make real, to fulfill. This purpose is given
only to selfless self-love, which seeks not itself blindly, but
with open eyes endeavors to correspond to the true reality of
God, the self, and the world.

The force of this metaphysical truth formulated by Aquinas
strikes so deep that, in a sense, it becomes even nonsensical to
desire the preservation of the inner order for its own sake and
consequently to will even genuine self-preservation as such.
(That the temperantia of the miser, who shuns debauchery

149

TEMPERANCE

because of its expense, is, as Aquinas says, no virtue, need
hardly be mentioned.) It is known how little, for example, a
medical directive alone can do to establish true inner
discipline; not unjustly has it been said of psychotherapy unre-
lated to either religion or metaphysics that it tends to produce
an "anxiously fostered middle-class tranquillity, poisoned by
its triteness," a result which evidently has nothing to do with
the essential serenity of genuine temperance. This failure is no
accident, but rather an inevitable consequence. The discipline
of temperance cannot be realized with a view to man alone.

The discipline of temperance, understood as selfless self-pres-
ervation, is the saving and defending realization of the inner
order of man. For temperance not only preserves, it also de-
fends: indeed, it preserves by defending. For since the first sin
man has been not only capable of loving himself more than he
loves God his Creator but, contrary to his own nature, in-
clined to do so. The discipline of temperance defends him
against all selfish perversion of the inner order, through which
alone the moral person exists and lives effectively.

Wherever forces of self-preservation, self-assertion, self-
fulfillment, destroy the structure of man's inner being, the dis-
cipline of temperance and the license of intemperance enter
into play.

The natural urge toward sensual enjoyment, manifested in
delight in food and drink and sexual pleasure, is the echo and
mirror of man's strongest natural forces of self-preservation.
The basic forms of enjoyment correspond to these most
primordial forces of being, which tend to preserve the indi-
vidual man, as well as the whole race, in the existence for
which he was created (Wisdom i, 14). But for the very reason
that these forces are closely allied to the deepest human urge
toward being, they exceed all other powers of mankind in
their destructive violence once they degenerate into selfishness.

Selfless Selj '-Preservation

Therefore, we find here the actual province of temperantia:
temperateness and chastity, intemperateness and unchastity,
are the primordial forms of the discipline of temperance and
the license of intemperance (see Chapters 2, 3).

But we have not, as yet, fully explored the range of the
concept of temperantia. In "humility," the instinctive urge to
self-assertion can also be made serviceable to genuine self-pres-
ervation, but it can likewise pervert and miss this purpose in
"pride" (Chapter 7). And if the natural desire of man to
avenge an injustice which he has suffered and to restore his
rights explodes in uncontrollable fury, it destroys that which
can be preserved only by "gentleness" and "mildness"
(Chapter 8). Without rational self-restraint even the natural
hunger for sense perception or for knowledge can degenerate
into a destructive and pathological compulsive greed; this deg-
radation Aquinas calls curiositas, the disciplined mode studio-
sit as (Chapter 9).

To sum up: chastity, continence, humility, gentleness, mild-
ness, studiositas, are modes of realization of the discipline of
temperance; unchastity, incontinence, pride, uninhibited wrath,
curiositas, are forms of intemperance.

Why is it that one reacts with involuntary irritation to these
terms which express the essence of temperance and intemper-
ance, discipline and dissoluteness? Since it can hardly be
caused by resistance to the good, this irritation must stem from
the thick tangle of misinterpretations which covers and
smothers each one of these concepts. This mesh of misinter-
pretations has its roots in a distortion and falsification of man's
ideal image which we can properly term demonic, all the more
so since Christians and non-Christians alike regard them as
characteristics of the Christian image of man. Worse, the root
cause is not just a misconceived image of the good man, but a
misconceived view of created reality. Temperantia is inti-
mately related to the ordered structure of the being of man, in

TEMPERANCE

which all gradations of creation unite; as the history of heresy
shows, it is quite particularly in the sphere of temferantia that
the attitude toward creation and "the world" is most inci-
sively decided.

The attempt to reconstitute the genuine and original mean-
ing of temperantia and its various modes of realization must
embrace a variety of tasks. It will have to go beyond the strict
limits of the subject, in order to anchor the true image of this
virtue in the fundamentals of Christian teaching concerning
man and reality.

152

3. Chastity and Unchastity

IN CURRENT TREATISES on chastity and unchastity, the
air one breathes is not always bracing.

This state of affairs may have various causes, one of which is
certainly this: in contradiction to the true grading and order
of things, the realm of sex again for many different reasons
has moved to the center of attention in the general moral
consciousness. In addition to this, and despite all contrary state-
ments of principle, a smoldering subterranean Manichaeism
casts suspicion on everything pertaining to physical reproduc-
tion as being somehow impure, defiling, and beneath the true
dignity of man. From all these and other hidden discords are
brewed the oppressive mists of casuistry and distortion, of
embarrassment and importunity, which frequently pervade
discussions of chastity and unchastity.

On the other hand, it is a refreshing and emancipating expe-
rience to read the tractate on the same subject by Aquinas, in
his Surrrma Theologica, written with truly holy candor and
concise cleanness. Then we realize with joy that we have the
right (and more than the right!) to adhere to the principles
taught by this "universal teacher" of the Church.

To begin with: for Thomas it is plainly self-evident indeed
so self-evident that it need hardly be mentioned even to those
but moderately instructed (while it may still be well not to
remain silent on this point) that the sexual powers are not
a "necessary evil" but really a good. With Aristotle, he says

TEMPERANCE

incisively that there is something divine in human seed. It is
equally self-evident to Thomas's thinking that, "like eating and
drinking," the fulfillment of the natural sexual urge and its
accompanying pleasure are good and not in the least sinful,
assuming, of course, that order and moderation are preserved.
For the intrinsic purpose of sexual power, namely, that not
only now but also in days to come the children of man may
dwell upon the earth and in the Kingdom of God, is not
merely a good, but, as Thomas says, "a surpassing good. 57 In-
deed, complete asensuality, unfeelingly adverse to all sexual
pleasure, which some would like to regard as "properly" per-
fect and ideal according to Christian doctrine, is described in
the Siwmna Tbeologica not only as an imperfection but ac-
tually as a moral defect (vitium) ,

At this point, a deliberate digression is called for. The pro-
genitive purpose of sexuality is not the sole and exclusive pur-
pose of marriage. Yet marriage is the proper fulfillment of
sexual power. Of the three goods of marriage community of
life, offspring, and sacramental blessing (fides, proles, sacrmnen-
tmn) it is the mutually benevolent and inviolable community
of life which, according to Aquinas, is the special benefit con-
ferred on man "as man."

This affirmative position is clear to Thomas beyond any
doubt because, more perhaps than any other Christian teacher,
he takes seriously the fundamental thought of revelation,
"Everything created by God is good," and thinks it through to
its conclusion. These words were used by the Apostle Paul in
order to reprimand, with the same reference to creation, those
"hypocritical liars" who carry a "torch in their conscience"
and "forbid men to marry and to enjoy certain foods" (I Tim.
4, zf.). Heresy and hyperasceticism are and always have been
close neighbors. The Father of the Church, St. John Chrysos-
tom, has expressed this with great emphasis; in a sermon he

Chastity and Unchasthy

links the words of Scripture concerning "two in one flesh" to
the physical union of the spouses and adds: "Why do you
blush? Is it not pure? You are behaving like heretics!"

"The more necessary something is, the more the order of
reason must be preserved in it." For the very reason that sexual
power is so noble and necessary a good, it needs the preserving
and defending order of reason.

Chastity as a virtue, therefore, is constituted in its essence by
this and nothing else, namely, that it realizes the order of rea-
son in the province of sexuality. Unchastity as a sin, on the
other hand, is in its essence the transgression and violation of
the rational order in the province of sexuality.

There is something uncomfortable about the straightfor-
ward use of the terms "reason" and "the order of reason" for
us modern Christians. But this mistrust, for which, by the way,
there is ample cause and reason, must not prevent us from a
frank inquiry into what Thomas would have us understand by
"reason" and "the order of reason."

Four facts have to be borne in mind if we wish to escape the
danger of simply missing St. Thomas's meaning, even before
taking a position ourselves. We must consider that Thomas's
concept of "reason" and "the order of reason" is to be taken
realistically, not idealistically; that it is free of all rationalistic
restrictions; that it has none of the connotations of the ratio of
the Enlightenment; and, finally, that it is not in the least spirit-
ualistic.

The concept "order of reason," first of all, does not signify
that something must agree with the imperative of an "absolute
reason" detached from its object. Reason includes a reference
to reality; indeed, it is itself this reference. "In accord with
reason" is in this sense that which is right "in itself," that
which corresponds to reality itself. The order of reason accord-

TEMPERANCE

ingly signifies that something is disposed in accordance with
the truth of real things.

Secondly, ratio is not that reason which arbitrarily restricts
itself to the province of purely natural cognition. Ratio here
signifies in its widest sense man's power to grasp reality.
Now, man grasps reality not only in natural cognition but also
and this reality is a higher object of knowledge and the
process of grasping it a higher process by faith in the revela-
tion of God. If therefore the Sitfmna Theologlca states that
Christ is the chief Lord (principalis Domimis), the first owner
of our bodies, and that one who uses his body in a manner
contrary to order, injures Christ the Lord Himself, Thomas is
not of the opinion that this proposition exceeds the pattern of
"mere" rational order, but rather that for Christian thought to
be guided by divine revelation is the very highest form of
"accord with reason" this in spite of the fact that elsewhere
Thomas knows how to distinguish sharply between natural
and supernatural cognition. "The order of reason," accord-
ingly, is the order which corresponds to the reality made evi-
dent to man through faith and knowledge.

Thirdly, the emphatic and ever recurrent stress on reason
and the order of reason in works of Aquinas is obviously
not to be understood in the sense which the Enlightenment has
given to these terms. "To realize the order of reason in the
province of sexuality" is a proposition which one most cer-
tainly would not want to understand as an incitement or
permission to lift that which natural feeling and propriety
surround and protect with the sheltering obscurity of conceal-
ment and silence into the crude and artificial light of a shallow
"know-it-all" view. Rather, Thomas expressly co-ordinates
modesty with chastity, whose function is to see to it that this
silence and this obscurity are not destroyed either by shameless-
ness or uninhibited rationalizing, or spotlighted by the

Chastity and Unchastity

methods of "sexual instruction." This, therefore, forms part of
the "order of reason" too.

Fourthly, the Thomistic concept of reason might be misin-
terpreted spiritualistically, a facile temptation to some. The
proposition that "the essential and proper good of man is exist-
ence in accord with reason" could be read to mean: "Constant
spiritual awareness is what distinguishes the specifically human
condition; everything that clouds this awareness is unspiritual,
consequently unworthy of the human condition, and therefore
evil." Applied to the province here under discussion such a
spiritualistic interpretation might easily lead to the following
conclusion: "In the act of procreation, reason is so over-
whelmed by the abundance of pleasure that, as the philosopher
says, spiritual cognition becomes impossible . . . ; thus there
can be no act of begetting without sin," Now this last sentence
is actually to be found in the Simma Theologica of St.
Thomas but as an "objection," that is, as an expressly con-
futed opinion, as a negation to which a clear affirmation is
opposed. The affirmation is worded as follows: "As long as the
sexual act itself corresponds to the rational order, the abun-
dance of pleasure does not conflict with the proper mean of
virtue. . . . And even the fact that reason is unable to make a
free act of cognition of spiritual things simultaneously with
that pleasure does not prove that the sexual act conflicts with
virtue. For it is not against virtue that the workings of reason
sometimes are interrupted by something that takes place in
accordance with reason: otherwise it would be contrary to
virtue to sleep." Do we need any further explanation in order
to show how much St. Thomas's concept of reason has regard
to the whole man to body and soul, sensuality and spirit-
uality? St. Thomas designates as "not in accord with reason"
the opinion of some Fathers of the Church that "in Paradise
the propagation of mankind would have taken place in some
other manner, such as that of the angels"; indeed, St. Thomas

TEMPERANCE

says: The pleasure that accompanies intercourse must have
been even stronger in Paradise since mental awareness was
unclouded and because of the greater delicacy of human na-
ture and the higher sensitivity of the body. But enough of this.

Only on the basis of these four delimitations and refutations
is our vision liberated so that we can see the true core of the
proposition that chastity, by disciplining sexuality, realizes the
order of reason.

The order of reason, however, implies, first, that the im-
manent purpose of sexual power be not perverted but fulfilled
(in marriage, with its threefold "good"); second, that the in-
ner structure of the moral person be kept intact; and, third,
that justice between men be not infringed. What we are con-
cerned with here is the purpose of sex as it was intended
originally in the first creation, and ennobled by Christ in the
New Creation; what we are concerned with is the existential
structure of the moral person, as established in nature and in
grace; what we are concerned with is order among men as
guaranteed not merely by natural justice, but also by the
higher justice of caritas, that is, supernatural love of God and
man.

Chastity realizes in the province of sex the order which
corresponds to the truth of the world and of man both as
experienced and as revealed, and which accords with the two-
fold form of this truth not that of unveiled evidence alone,
but that of veiled evidence also that is, of mystery.

It is not adultery only which touches upon the provinces of
both temperantia and justice; rather, any unchastity has these
two aspects: to be at once intemperance and injustice. St.
Thomas relates the totality of all sins against chastity to the
"common weal" taking this term in a very profound and far-
reaching sense and to justice as well; similarly, he rektes all

tyS

Chastity and Unchastity

the Ten Commandments, not excepting the sixth and the
ninth, to justice.

We have become used to see in adultery, and even more in
adulterous desire and cupidity, as in sexual transgressions gen-
erally, almost exclusively the element of lust, neglecting almost
completely the element of injustice. Yet it is very important
that the collective moral consciousness of Christianity should
again assign greater weight to this objective side of chastity,
which is concerned with the common weal and with justice, as
against a view limited exclusively to the subjective factor. To
restore the proper emphasis is evidently important not only
because it corresponds to actual fact and truth, but also be-
cause the neglect or insufficient observation of the objective
element of justice in chastity and its opposite derives from an
erroneous conception of man and at the same time causes and
perpetuates this error.

In this book, which treats of temperantia and not of the
sixth commandment nor of marriage nor of the Christian idea
of man as a whole, nor of justice, it is quite enough that this
thought has been given emphatic expression.

Here, however, it is our purpose to consider chastity and
unchastity expressly from the point of view of moderation and
its opposite, being fully aware, at the same time, of the limita-
tions inherent in the subject. We shall speak first not of its
outward repercussions, but of its root in the inner man: of the
disciplining of the sex urge by the spiritual directing power of
reason, and also of the abdication of the spirit, which opens
the way for sex to destroy the moral person.

In what way and why does unchastity destroy the structure
of the person?

Unchastity most effectively falsifies and corrupts the virtue
of prudence. All that conflicts with the virtue of prudence
stems for the most part from unchastity; unchastity begets a
blindness of spirit which practically excludes all understanding

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of the goods of the spirit; unchastity splits the power of deci-
sion; conversely, the virtue of chastity more than any other
makes man capable and ready for contemplation.

All these propositions of St. Thomas do not refer to isolated
effects and consequences; if the spirit is blinded by unchastity,
it is not by a process similar to the wilting of a plant in a
rainless period. This blindness is of the essence of unchastity
itself, which is by its very nature destructive. It is not its
outward effect and consequence, but its immanent essential
property,

"The being of man in its essential significance consists in
this: to be in accord with reason. If therefore a man keeps to
what is in accord with reason, he is said 'to keep himself in
himself.' " Unchastity destroys in a very special manner this
self-possession and this human "keeping of oneself in oneself."
Unchaste abandon and the self-surrender of the soul to the
world of sensuality paralyzes the primordial powers of the
moral person: the ability to perceive, in silence, the call of
reality, and to make, in the retreat of this silence, the decision
appropriate to the concrete situation of concrete action. This
is the meaning inherent in all those propositions which speak
of the falsification and corruption of prudence, of the blind-
ness of the spirit, and of the splitting of the power of deci-
sion.

Now all this is not to be understood as if the corruptive
effect of unchastity derived from the fact that the spirit turns
to the "sensual" and "inferior" in general. On the contrary,
such turning is altogether inevitable for any decision. It is
indeed of the essence of the virtue of prudence that it face
squarely all those concrete realities which surround man's con-
crete actions. Accordingly, it is not the reference to the prov-
ince of sexuality that produces the blindness and deafness
brought about by unchastity; such an opinion would be Mani-
chaean at bottom, and therefore anti-Christian.

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Chastity and Unchastity

Rather, the destructiveness lies in the fact that unchastity
constricts man and thus renders him incapable of seeing objec-
tive reality. An unchaste man wants above all something for
himself; he is distracted by an unobjective "interest"; his con-
stantly strained will-to-pleasure prevents him from confront-
ing reality with that selfless detachment which alone makes
genuine knowledge possible. St. Thomas here uses the compari-
son of a lion who, at the sight of a stag, is unable to perceive
anything but the anticipated meal In an unchaste heart, atten-
tion is not merely fixed upon a certain track, but the
"window" of the soul has lost its "transparency," that is, its
capacity for perceiving existence, as if a selfish interest had
covered it, as it were, with a film of dust. (We cannot repeat
too often: only he who is silent hears, only the invisible is
transparent.)

This kind of interestedness is altogether selfish. The abandon-
ment of an unchaste heart to the sensual world has nothing in
common with the genuine dedication of a searcher for truth to
the reality of being, of a lover to his beloved. Unchastity does
not dedicate itself, it offers itself. It is selfishly intent upon the
"prize," upon the reward of illicit lust. "Chaste," says St. Au-
gustine, "is the heart that loves God without looking for re-
ward." One further comment: For anyone whose function it is
to lead and counsel young people, it is extremely important to
keep in mind and to make known that it is this selfishness
which characterizes the inner nature of unchastity (as intem-
perance). Where the selfish motive is absent, we may speak of
thoughtlessness, curiosity, or of impulses so completely natural
that they lie outside the scope of moral judgment but not of
unchastity.

This perversion of a genuine process of knowing is all the
more destructive the more immediately a given knowledge con-
cerns man himself and the more it can be the foundation of
moral decisions. Not only is the cognitive process thereby

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poisoned and perverted, but also the power of decision itself,
and even more so; "most of all prudence," says Aquinas. It is
prudence, however, which, as the perfection of conscience, is
the innermost source-region of the moral person. Prudence
implies a transformation of the knowledge of truth into deci-
sions corresponding to reality. This transformation is achieved
in three steps: deliberation, judgment, decision. Upon each of
these three steps the destructive power of intemperance mani-
fests itself: in place of deliberation guided by the truth of
things, we find complete recklessness and inconsideration; a
hasty judgment that will not wait until reason has weighed
the pros and cons; and even if a correct decision were reached,
it would always be endangered by the fickleness of a heart that
abandons itself indiscriminately to the surging mass of sensual
impressions. This is inevitable: if you do not move a knife in
the plane of the thing to be cut, it cannot cut at all. So without
a direct, innocent, and selfless vision of reality there can be no
interior order of the moral person and no honest moral deci-
sion.

Chastity, on the other hand, renders one able to perceive
reality and ready not only for the perception and thus also
for decision corresponding to reality, but also for that highest
mode of relating oneself to reality in which the purest dedica-
tion to knowledge and the most selfless dedication in love be-
come one, namely, contemplation, in which man turns toward
the divine Being and becomes aware of that truth which is at
once the highest good.

To be open to the truth of real things and to live by the
truth that one has grasped is the essence of the moral being.
Only when we recognize this state of things can we likewise
understand the depths to which the unchaste heart permits
destruction to invade its very being.

This dark portrayal of the destructive force of unchastity
applies in all its harshness only to unchastity as mtempercmtla^

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Chastity and Unchastity

but not to unchastity as mcominentm^ just as that which has
been said of chastity is fully pertinent only to chastity as tem-
perantia but not to chastity as continent^ This significant
distinction must be briefly explained.

Because it is not always the same thing when two people do
the same thing, a moral doctrine which regards only the ac-
tions of man but not his being, is always in danger of seeing
only the sameness (or the difference) of the actions, and miss-
ing important differences (or samenesses) at a greater depth.
Since, however, the moral theology of the universal teacher of
the Church is a doctrine of virtue that is, a doctrine of the
being of man as the source of his actions the difference be-
tween temperantia-mtempermtia on the one hand and con-
tinemw-incontinentia on the other hand could not easily es-
cape him.

Chastity as temperantia, or unchastity as intem-perantia:
This means that each, respectively, has become a deep-rooted
basic attitude of man, and, as it were, a second nature to him.
Chastity as continently or unchastity as incontinentia- This
means that neither is necessarily based on what might be called
a natural inclination of being; neither has as yet grown firm
roots in the existential core of man. This second mode of chas-
tity is not the perfected virtue of temperance and moderation,
but a strenuous control; and this mode of unchastity is not a
consummate intemperance, but a mere lack of control. Chas-
tity ^as control is only a tentative sketch; chastity as temperan-
tia is perfected realization. The first is less perfect than the
second, because by the former, the directing power of reason
has been able to mold only the conscious will, but not yet the
sensual urge, whereas by the latter will and urge are both
stamped with "rational order." In Thomas's explicit opinion,
the effort of self-control pertains only to the less perfect steps
of the beginner, whereas real, perfected virtue, by the very
nature of its concept, bears the joyous, radiant seal of ease, of
effortlessness, of self-evident inclination. On the other hand,

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unchastity in the form of lack of self-control is less pernicious,
less sinful, than unchastity in the form of actual intemperance.
In the first case, as Aristotle and St. Thomas say, the best is not
lost; the principle, the ground of being, subsists, namely, the
right conception of the direction of will toward the true goal;
and through this unblemished rightness even the sensual urge
can be reintegrated again and again into its order: he who sins
from lack of control is quick to repent; and repentance is the
repudiation of sin. On the other hand, he who sins from a
deep-rooted basic attitude of intemperance directs his will ex-
pressly toward sin; he does not repent easily; indeed, "he is
happy to have sinned, because sinning has become 'natural' for
him." The merely uncontrolled can be "recalled" to order;
actual intemperance, however, is not easily revocable. To sin
from a basic attitude of one's will is real malice; to sin in a gust
of passion is weakness iwfinmtas. One who is merely uncon-
trolled is not unchaste, even though he acts unchastely,

It is no doubt easy to see that to stress this difference is not
to indulge in the pleasure of theoretical hair-splitting. Rather,
it is an attempt to establish a contrast which acquires an
immediately practical significance, both pedagogical and pasto-
ral.

It is temperavitia, the virtue that realizes the inner order of
man in himself, which St. Thomas has in mind when in con-
trast to justice, in whose province that which is "properly and
in itself right" can and must be determined speaking of "the
other moral virtues which refer to the passions and in which
right or wrong cannot be determined in the same fashion,
because men vary in their attitudes toward the passions," he
says, "therefore it is necessary that what is right and reasonable
in the passions should be determined with reference to our-
selves, who are moved by the passions." But especially in the
province of temperantia <4 we ourselves" have the choice of
innumerable possibilities: for example, to desire halfheartedly

164

Chastity and Unchastity

or wholeheartedly, to tolerate, to let things take their course,
to give in to pressure or to be carried away. "Who could
determine," writes the perceptive Thomist, H. D. Noble, in
his commentary on the French edition of Aquinas "who
could determine when lack of control ends and when actual
intemperance begins?"

St. Thomas says that the realization of temperantia varies
too much according to individuals and periods to allow the
establishment of hard and fast, universally valid command-
ments on temperantia. The whole realm of "unchaste thoughts,
desires, words, looks, etc.," which in the casuistic manuals oc-
cupies so much space, is treated in the Swnma Theologica in a
single article not quite one page in length. It determines the
general principle only, that it is not the accomplished sinful
act alone that is sinful, but also the willing consent to the
pleasure imagined and implicit in this act; for this willing con-
sent is inconceivable without an attitude of acceptance toward
the accomplished act itself; everything, therefore, which de-
rives from such willing consent is likewise a sin.

Within this frame of reference it should certainly be possible
to construe, after the manner of the casuist, a series of typical
"individual cases" exemplifying the springs of action, a sim-
plified and meaningful "scheme" of human behavior. But how
are we to react to a proposition such as this one, found in one
of the most popular handbooks of moral theology: "To look
at the private parts of animals out of curiosity, but without
voluptuousness ... is a venial sin"? Not to mention other
distortions, it seems that here the limit beyond which casuistry
becomes meaningless has been considerably exceeded. Proposi-
tions so constructed seem entirely to miss the true purpose and
scope of casuistry, which is to provide a tentative approach
and an auxiliary means for the practice of discernment. Is it
not to be feared that a discernment schooled by such methods
will be misguided toward an unrealistic rigidity and a prema-
turely fixed judgment, instead of toward a sober evaluation of

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the realities of life; and that this in turn may lead to a total
incomprehension of the reality of man as a being who re-
sponds to the richly orchestrated world with every power of
his soul, and thus reaches his choice?

We have spoken of the destructive power of unchastity and
of the preserving, perfecting, fulfilling power of chastity.
Something more must be added to this subject.

Without chastity, not only is the satiation of the spirit with
truth rendered impossible, but also actual sensual joy in what is
sensually beautiful. That Christian doctrine does not exclude
sensual enjoyment from the realm of the morally good (as
against the merely "permissible") does not need to be
specifically stated. But that this enjoyment should be made
possible only by the virtue of temperance and moderation
that, indeed, is a surprising thought. Yet this is what we read
in the Swnrna Theologica, in the first question of the tractate
on temperance even if more between and behind the lines
than in what is said directly. In the case of animals, it is said
there, no pleasure is derived from the activity of the other
senses, such as the eye and the ear, except as they affect the
satisfaction of the drives of hunger and sex; only because of
the promise of food is the lion "happy" when he spies a stag
or hears his call. Man, by contrast, is able to enjoy what is seen
or heard for the sensual "appropriateness" alone which appeals
to the eye and the ear by this, nothing else but sensual beauty
is to be understood. One frequently reads and hears that in
intemperance man sinks to the level of the beast & dictum to
be used with caution, for intemperance (like temperance) is
something exclusively human; neither angel nor animal can
know it. But keeping this distinction in mind, the sentence
becomes meaningful: unchaste lust has the tendency to relate
the whole complex of the sensual world, and particularly of
sensual beauty, to sexual pleasure exclusively. Therefore only a
chaste sensuality can realize the specifically human faculty of

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Chastity and Unchastity

perceiving sensual beauty, such as that of the human body, as
beauty, and to enjoy it for its own sake, for its "sensual ap-
propriateness/' undeterred and unsullied by the self-centered
will to pleasure. It has been said that only the pure of heart
can laugh freely and liberatingly. It is no less true that only
those who look at the world with pure eyes can experience its
beauty.

Unlike all other virtues, it has always been the strange fate of
the virtue of temperance and moderation, especially in its as-
pect of chastity, not to be valued and practiced or scorned and
ridiculed more or less at its face value, but to be overestimated
and overvalued in a very specific sense. This is something alto-
gether unique. There have, of course, always been theoretical
discussions about the hierarchy of the virtues, and one or the
other has been shifted to a higher rank. But the stubborn and
really quite fanatical preference given to temperantia, espe-
cially to chastity, which runs through the whole history of
Christian doctrine as a more or less hidden undercurrent or
countercurrent, has a very special aspect. No one, at any rate,
has attached to justice or prudence or to any of the three
theological virtues such an emphatic and evidently not simply
factual, but emotionally charged, evaluation.

Of course, there would not be the slightest objection against
such an evaluation per se for strictly speaking, virtues as such
cannot be overrated. But here we are speaking of an evaluation
and overvaluation based on a false premise; of an evaluation,
therefore, which implies a misunderstanding of what is sup-
posedly valued so highly. And against this we must object
strongly.

In the province of temperantia, as we have said before, it is
man's attitude toward creation which is decided, and most
incisively. And the "wrong premise" upon which rest the
overvaluation and erroneous value given to temperantia in

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general and chastity in particular amounts to this, namely, the
explicit or implied opinion that the sensual reality of the
whole of creation, and above all the nonspiritual element in
man himself, is actually evil. To sum up: the "wrong premise"
is an explicit, or, more often, an implicit, even unconscious and
unintended, Manichaeism.

That man must eat, that he must sleep, that the origin of
new human life is linked to the physical union of man and
woman all this, especially the last, appears, in this presum-
ably ineradicable apprehension of the world, as a necessary
evil perhaps not even a necessary one something unworthy
of God the Creator and of man as well. The specifically hu-
man task, or better still, the specifically Christian task, would
consist in rising above this entire "lower" sphere and mounting
by ascetic practice to a purely spiritual way of life. Not only
do fasting, vigils, and sexual continence take on a very special
importance from this basic approach, but they move necessar-
ily into the center of attention of the man striving for perfec-
tion. This evaluation, however, shares and indeed intensifies
the errors of its origin; and despite all outward similarity, it
has as little to do with the Christian evaluation of those three
things as the heresies of the Manichees, the Montanists, and the
Cathari have to do with the Catholic dogma that proclaims
that created reality is good in all its spheres, and is not subject
to the arbitrariness of human evaluation; indeed, it is the basis
and the point of departure of all evaluation as well as of all
realization of value.

That "wrong premise" with its effects on ethical doctrine is
particularly evident in the Montanist writings of Tertullian,
who, by reason of his ambiguous status as a quasi-Father of the
Church (St. Thomas speaks of him only as a heretic: haere-
ticus, Tertullianus nomne)^ has continued to this day as the
ancestor and the chief witness of that erroneous evaluation of

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Chastity and Unchastity

temperantia. One need only enumerate the subjects of his
works: "On Modesty," "On the Veiling of Virgins," "On the
Adornment of Women," "On Fasting," "Admonition to Chas-
tity," "Concerning Stage Plays," or mention his rejection of
second marriages after the death of wife or husband, in order
to show that the realm of temperantia is very prominently under
scrutiny. For Tertullian, unchastity is to such a point the pri-
mal form of sin that according to him the sin of the angels was
unchastity, and thus they fell from God; this is what he
thought St. Paul had in mind when he said that women should
veil themselves "because of the angels" (I Cor. 4, 10). To the
same frame of reference belongs the cause of Tertullian's sep-
aration from the Church only a few years after his baptism: he
could neither comprehend nor condone the fact that Pope
Callistus welcomed back into the ecclesiastical community
those sinners against chastity who had done the required pen-
ance contritely. Tertullian denounces the encyclical with
which the Pope proclaims this measure as a blot upon the
Church, fit to be read "in those dens of vice, beneath the
signboards of the whorehouses rather than in the house of
God." It is characteristic, also, that already with TertuJJian the
emphasis on external action appears which customarily and as
if from inner necessity accompanies the erroneous evaluation
of temperantia, and more especially of chastity: he calls for
more obligatory fast days; for the veiling of women and girls;
and he sees the hallmark of a Christian in his abstention from
public entertainments.

Blindness only can deny that this Manichaean undervalua-
tion of the sensual reality of creation (let us repeat: not as a
formulated opinion, but as an inarticulate attitude) tinges and
surreptitiously qualifies the current Christian notion of the vir-
tue of temperance, and more especially of chastity. This be-
comes evident in innumerable small traits pertaining to the

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thinking and speaking habits of Christian folk, and also not
infrequently in the accents and shadings of moral preaching
itself.

If, for example, one speaks with special emphasis of the
defilement of unchastity, this implies a different and weightier
blame than the defilement pertaining to any other sin. (Ac-
tually, the term "defilement" is almost never applied to other
sins.) What is censured is not only the specific "vulgarity"
inherent in any form of self-indulging pleasure; there is also
almost always a persistently audible undertone suggesting the
idea of contact with something in itself impure, with a reality
defiling per se. The current notion of the "Immaculate Concep-
tion" current even among Christians refers this immaculate-
ness not so much to the person of the Virgin Mary as to the
process of conception, of begetting (and often enough, as any-
one can test, not to the conception of Mary, but to that of the
Lord in the womb of His mother). Among people generally,
this immaculateness is in any case not understood as it is under-
stood by the Church and by theology, namely, as signifying
that Mary was free from the stain of original sin from her
mother's womb. The current popular notion, rather, is this: by
a special grace of God, that conception remained free from
the impurity and taint which naturally adheres to it, as to all
begetting and conception. And even if this immaculateness is
correctly referred to the person of the Virgin Mary herself, as
in the appellation Mary "Immaculate," we find on close listen-
ing that the concept has been totally deprived of its universal,
inclusive significance, and has been limited to the province of
chastity alone. Something similar is true of the concept of
purity, which, also viewed Biblically, is much broader in scope
than chastity. For the average understanding it has become
entirely natural to refer the beatitude "Blessed are the pure in
heart" exclusively, or at any rate principally, to chastity,
though neither the immediate Biblical meaning nor the inter-
pretation of these words of the Lord in ckssical theology fa-

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Chastity and Unchastity

vors such restriction; Aquinas, for example, by no means as-
signs the beatitude of the pure in heart to the virtue of
chastity, but to the supernatural virtue of faith. Finally: Try
to ascertain what the average Christian associates with the sen-
tence: To the pure all things are pure. First, he will not
readily imagine that this phrase is to be found in the New
Testament (Titus 1,15) and that it only affirms what was said
by Jesus Himself (Matt. 15, 10-20); on the contrary, the aver-
age Christian, such as we find him in every walk of life and on
every educational level, would sooner have guessed at a non-
Christian, liberal author. And it is scarcely ever thought of
that aside from and indeed predating its misused liberal inter-
pretation, this sentence has a sound and important Christian
significance. Of course here again purity is confined to chas-
tity, in evident contradiction to the sense of the context. And
since the presumably Christian sense of the Biblical sentence is
supposed to imply that even to the pure man not everything is
pure, we find here again the effects of the notion of the essen-
tial impurity of the reality of being.

These misconceptions, which miss the actual Christian mean-
ing of things and examples of which could be multiplied
can only be partially attributed to ignorance. They propagate
themselves, in the form of inarticulate opinions and attitudes,
beneath and beyond and even in spite of formal instruction; as
a rule, the average Christian we here have in mind will, after
some concentration on the relevant article in his catechism, be
able to give the "theoretically" correct answer. Decisive, how-
ever, are not so much the explicit words as the atmosphere in
the province of moral education and teaching; and it must be
admitted by even the most cautious judgment that this atmos-
phere is plainly not entirely free from the germs of Mani-
chaeism. And no cleansing can be effected by mere theoretical
knowledge and cognition, or by instruction only. What is re-
quired is that the dogmatic truth of God the Creator and His
works be wholly appropriated in humbly confident assent, and

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that this truth obtain the radiant and vivifying power which is
the exclusive property of genuine vitality.

But the "world" exists not only as God's creation. There is
also the "world" w^hich, as St. John the Apostle says, "lies in
evil" and prevails in the "gratification of corrupt nature,
gratification of the eyes, and the empty pomp of living" (I
John 22, 1 6); there is the kingdom of the "Prince of this
world" (John 12, 31, Luke 4, 6); there is the world for which
Christ the Lord did not want to pray (John 17, 9). There is
not only the reality of creation, but also the perversion of the
order of creation, which has taken on form in the activities of
men and the objective "creations" which grow out of these.
And this "world" also comes up for judgment in the sphere of
tempertmtia,) in a very specific sense. It is in that which aids
and abets the self-indulging lust for pleasure that the inversion
of the order of creation may most obtrusively be realized,
filling the foreground of the "world" completely with its se-
ductive call. (Though of course the core and substance of that
world which lies in evil consists primarily in the realization of
injustice and above all in the actual denial of faith, hope, and
charity a telling counterpart to the hierarchy of the virtues! )
From this point of view the evaluation and educational em-
phasis put on the virtue of temperance rightly achieves special
significance. This sort of estimate of temperantia, however, has
to be carefully distinguished from the previously mentioned
"Manichaean" variety (not always an easy task, as the Mani-
chaeans constantly adduce the valid arguments of the other
side together with their own). Even the rigorist attitude of the
Carthaginian Tertullian is partially conditioned by his constant
experience of metropolitan life. "It is bad to live in cities:
there are too many lecherous people," reads the beginning of
the chapter on chastity in Nietzsche's Zarathustra. What
Nietzsche asserts with hard-hitting precision was also known
to Thomas, who formulates it more dispassionately and ab-

Chastity and Unchastity

stractly: "There is not much sinning because of natural desires.
. . . But the stimuli of desire which man's cunning has de-
vised are something else, and for the sake of these one sins very
much." Intemperance is enkindled above all by the seductive
glamour of the stimuli provided in an artificial civilization,
with which the dishonorable team of blind lust and calculated
greed surround the province of sexuality. All training and self-
discipline aiming at chastity will find itself constantly faced
with this situation. The resulting "overemphasis" on temperan-
tia is in a certain sense fully justified (even though, on the
other hand, the ethics of the so-called "fight against public
immorality" seem to be a precarious and debatable business
and not only because of their ineffectiveness). Even St.
Thomas assigns to temperantia primacy before fortitude and
justice though in a circumscribed, nonactual sense since it
must be most often proven in the world. We say in a circum-
scribed, nonactual sense, for the hierarchy which is actually
and essentially valid is of a different kind.

But first a comment is necessary to avoid facile misunder-
standings. In these considerations it is not a question of mini-
mizing the gravity of the sins against chastity. No attempt at
palliation can lessen the fearful weight of the willful turning of
man from God. But we must never lose sight of the fact that
the essential nature of sin lies exclusively in this willful turning
away from God. On the other hand, the opinion (again
founded on Tertullian) that unchastity is the gravest of all
sins, seems to base the gravity of this sin not so much on the
turning away from God as on the turning of man to the goods
of the sensual world; or, more directly and revealingly ex-
pressed: on defilement by a reality presumed to be impure and
evil in its essence. St. Thomas, however, states that even a
disordered turning of man to a transitory good, if it does not
include a turning away from God, cannot be a mortal sin.

But even the Swnma once quotes the sentence of St. Isidore

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of Seville according to which the human race succumbs to the
devil more through unchastity than in any other way. In the
moral teaching of the last hundred years this thought has
played a dominant role, to an extent where it is overrefined to
a definiteness of statement exceeding all human competence.
How could a mere human being be able to know that as a
widely read theological writer of our times asserts "there are
ninety-nine people out of a hundred who will be damned for
this very sin!" For St. Thomas, by contrast, the proposition of
St. Isidore merely proved that in the sin of unchastity the
compelling force of sensual desire is most effective; this very
fact, however, mitigates the gravity of the sin, "because the sin
is more venial the more overwhelming the sensual passion that
drives one to it."

But let us return to the consideration of the hierarchy of the
virtues and the place of temperamtia in that hierarchy. Over
and over again Thomas has raised the question of the hierarchy
of the virtues. His reply is as follows: "Man's good is rational
good. But this good is possessed in its essence by prudence,
which is the perfection of reason. But justice is the agent
which makes this good real. It is the portion of justice to
establish in all human affairs the order of reason. But the other
virtues maintain and protect this good, insofar as they order
the passions, lest these turn man away from rational good. In
the hierarchy of these virtues fortitude has the first place. It is
followed by temperance. That which concerns being is higher
than that which concerns operation; and this again is higher
than that which concerns maintenance and protection, inas-
much as only that which hinders is removed. Consequently,
among the cardinal virtues prudence is the noblest; justice is
the second, fortitude the third, temperantia the fourth." "Jus-
tice and fortitude are higher virtues than temperance; but they
are all exceeded by prudence and the theological virtues."

Chastity and Unchastity

Temperantia in its strict and ultimate sense is not "realiza-
tion" of the good. Discipline, moderation, chastity, do not in
themselves constitute the perfection of man. By preserving and
defending order in man himself, temperantia creates the indis-
pensable prerequisite for both the realization of actual good
and the actual movement of man toward his goal. Without it,
the stream of the innermost human will-to-be would overflow
destructively beyond all bounds, it would lose its direction and
never reach the sea of perfection. Yet temperantia. is not itself
the stream. But it is the shore, the banks, from whose solidity
the stream receives the gift of straight unhindered course, of
force, descent, and velocity.

'75

4. Virginity

THE NOBLE, truly princely practice of spending lav-
ishly in order to make splendidly visible some sublime thought
either in a solemn celebration, in sculpture, or in architec-
ture this virtue (for it is a virtue!) the Middle Ages called
magnificentia. We no longer can describe it in a single word.
But the relation of magnificentia to ordinary generosity, which
belongs to the daily sphere of needs and requests, is the same,
says St. Thomas, as the relation of virginity to chastity.

One might almost say that we lack today the right word for
virginity also. For "virginity" designates in popular parlance
the condition of intactness and singleness rather than the
virtue, born of grace and resolve, of him who for the sake of
God has forever renounced the experience of sexual enjoy-
ment. Again we are constrained to think that this poverty of
language must have its deepest cause in the fact that the
popular mind is no longer deeply aware of the thing itself.
However that may be, if here we briefly expound the nature
of the virtue of virginitas under the name of virginity, we
needs must keep in mind many discrepancies from current
usages of speech and interpretation.

First: Virginity is not a fact, but an act; not a condition, but
a decision. That which constitutes virginity as a virtue is not
mere inviolateness as a psychic (and certainly not as a
physical) factor, even though this inviolateness may be the
trophy of heroic chastity. Virginity as a virtue is established

2*16

Virginity

by the decision, or, to speak even more accurately, by the vow
to refrain forever from sexual union and its attendant pleasure.

Nor is this all. Such a decision might spring from all sorts of
reasons, for instance, from the anti-Christian view that this
kind of abstinence is nothing but abstinence from evil. Two
things are involved in this decision, or rather enter into it and
pervade it utterly.

First: "Virginity is honored not because it is virginity, but
because it is consecrated." The decision to live in sexual ab-
stinence is not in itself worthy of praise; it is "made praisewor-
thy only by its end and purpose, to the extent that it aims to
make him who practises it free for things divine." It would be
well if not only the non-Christian but the Christian also always
kept in mind these two incontrovertible sentences of the great-
est teachers of the Church, St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and
remembered that consequently a virginity which does not real-
ize the purpose of being free for God and for divine things
becomes correspondingly meaningless and, in any case, loses
the dignity for which it is honored by the Church. Of course,
various chance necessities or even moral reasons may force or
move a man to remain unmarried; and evidently the radiance
of a sacrifice offered to God can be imparted to such a neces-
sity or choice. But to prize, on purely religious grounds, a
celibacy that lacks the support of its most essential foundation,
necessarily borders on Manichaeism, which regards the bare
fact of celibacy itself as a good and consequently sees some-
thing evil in marriage.

And here we come to the second fact expressed in the Chris-
tian decision to remain virginal: the affirmation of marriage as
both a natural and a supernatural good. The Church has ex-
pressed this affirmation not only "where it belongs/' that is,
not only in the liturgy of the Nuptial Mass and in dogmatic
decisions concerning the seventh sacrament. It is affirmed in
the very prayer at the consecration of virgins, where she
speaks of the sanctity of matrimony and of the blessing that

TEMPERANCE

rests upon it; and in this very place virginity is expressly re-
lated to the same mystery that is included in the matrimonial
union of man and wife.

Only because of this mystery of the union with Christ, only
because it fosters a more undivided devotion to God, is virgin-
ity superior to marriage. That virginity, chosen for the sake of
a positive goal, really makes possible a fuller concentration
need not be further discussed; it is evident to everybody that
soldiers and political leaders remain freer for their tasks if they
stay single.

On the other hand, however, we have the words of St. Cath-
erine of Genoa, to a priest who spoke of the higher sanctity of
the celibate life to her, who was a wife and a mother: Not
even life in a military camp could distract her from her love of
God how much less, marriage! "If world or husband could
hinder love, what a petty thing love would be!" With these
refreshingly outspoken words the saint names not only the
ultimate and decisive foundation of all sanctity (which, as St.
Thomas teaches, is not virginity, but love of God) but she also
rightfully objects to the contrasting of the married and the
virginal person (in concrete) as beings of different value, in-
stead of the contrasting (in abstracto) of marriage and virgin-
ity. "Better the chastity of celibates than the chastity of the
married; but I, the celibate, am not better than Abraham," says
St. Augustine. And in his book on virginity he admonishes
virgins consecrated to God: "Whence does the virgin know,
no matter how she may seek what is the Lord's, whether per-
haps, for some weakness unknown to her, she is not yet ripe
for the trial of martyrdom; and whether that married woman
to whom she thinks herself superior may not already be able to
drink the chalice of the Lord's suffering!"

There are two, as it were, eternal objections to virginity:
first, that it is against nature, and second, that by weakening

178

Virginity

the generative power of the people, it conflicts with the com-
mon weal. Only those ignorant of the range and acumen of St.
Thomas's mind will be surprised to find both objections most
precisely formulated in the Surrrma Theologies

More important still is his reply, built up in a three-mem-
bered argument.

First, the objection: As it is natural that man should give up
his external goods money and property for the sake of his
bodily health, so it is not contrary to nature that man re-
nounce the gratification of physical desire for the sake of his
spiritual and intellectual life. This is the natural order, ap-
propriate to the nature of things and of man. But how is
this? No one would stop eating and drinking for the sake of
spiritual goods, and is it not said in Holy Scripture: "Increase
and multiply and people the earth!" (Gen. i, 28).

Second, the answer: There are two kinds of natural must
and may. one is for the individual / 5 the other for the commu-
nity of the we. Each individual must eat and drink. But the
command of Genesis applies to the whole community of man-
kind. "In the army some keep watch over the camp, others are
standard-bearers, and others fight with the sword. All these
things are duties which make for community life which, in
turn, cannot be carried out by the individual." It is conse-
quently necessary for the human community "not only that it
be propagated, but also that it flourish spiritually and intellec-
tually. And therefore the common human weal has received its
due if some fulfill the function of physical generation, while
others, refraining from this, are entirely liberated for the con-
templation of things divine for the beauty and the salvation
of the whole of mankind."

Third, to clinch the argument: "The common weal is higher
than the individual's, if both are of the same kind; but it may
be that the good of the individual is of a higher kind. In this
way virginity consecrated to God ranks higher than physical
fertility."

TEMPERANCE

There are certain concepts which, as in a concave mirror,
draw together a complete view of the world. And these same
concepts are the crossroads where minds either meet or part.
Of such is the concept of virginity.

Only he who recognizes the hierarchy which informs the
three-membered argument of St. Thomas namely, that the
divine is infinitely higher than the human, and that the spirit-
ual towers above the physical who recognizes this hierarchy
not only "conceptually" but "really" (to speak w r ith
Newman), he alone can comprehend the significance, the
justification, and the dignity of virginity.

The notion and the actuality of the virginal life dedicated to
God rise up like a sign of challenge. In this sign it becomes
manifest whether the intellectual and spiritual goods really,
validly, and vitally occupy their appropriate place and rank.
In this sign also it becomes manifest whether these goods are
counted among those by virtue of which the community of
the people lives "for the beauty and salvation of the whole
of mankind."

280

5. On Tasting

HILARITAS MENTIS cheerfulness of heart. Chris
dogma links this notion most closely to the primal form oi
asceticism, fasting. This connection is based on the New Te
ment, on the Lord's admonition, proclaimed by the Chu
every year at the beginning of Lent: "When you fast, do
shew it by gloomy looks!" (Matt. 6, 16).

St. Augustine says that it is a matter of indifference what
how much a man eats, provided the welfare of those ^
whom he is associated, his own welfare and the requireme
of health be not disregarded; what matters, he says, is just <
thing, namely, the ease and cheerfulness of heart with wl?
he is able to renounce food if necessity or moral obligat
require it.

If necessity demands. This needs no elaboration. But w
about fasting as a moral obligation? The reply leads us to
heart of the matter, and to a point of information that r
greatly surprise modern Christians. We are inclined and ace
tomed to see in the practice of fasting a traditional and sui
very meaningful custom of the Church; a custom which
somehow gathered obligatory force, but only by virtue c
purely disciplinary regulation of the Church, which is cles
ready to grant all kinds of alleviations and dispensations. Otl
wise, fasting seems to us something extraordinary in ev
sense, linked at once to the idea of the ascetic and the saint
is with some surprise, therefore, that we read in Aquinas,

/*/

TEMPERANCE

"universal teacher" of the Church, that fasting is a command-
ment of the natural law, quite specifically intended for the
average Christian. At this point it is important to recall that
for St. Thomas the "natural law" is the fundamental source of
obligation. The natural moral law is the ultimate "ought,"
given and established directly in the nature of created reality,
and as such endowed with supreme binding power. Conse-
quently, the fasting regulations of the Church go back to this
fundamental obligation, and constitute only a more accurately
defined form, modified according to temporal circumstances
and prevailing customs.

Whoever has not reached the maturity of perfection that
is, all of us ordinary Christians could not preserve, without
recourse to the medicine, the discipline, of fasting, that inner
order by virtue of which the turbulence of sensuality is kept
in check and the spirit liberated so that it may soar into the
zone of its appropriate fulfillment and satisfaction. It is here,
most particularly and strikingly, that the stern demands inher-
ent in the Christian image of man become compellingly visible.
Our natural duty obliges us to pay dearly so that we may
become what we are by essence: the free moral person in full
possession of himself.

Everyone knows that, on the whole, the Church's laws of
fasting are not taken too seriously. It would be an error, how-
ever, to attribute this primarily to contempt for the ecclesiasti-
cal authority. The reason for this laxity lies elsewhere, namely,
in the fact that nothing is as alien to the average Christian as
the thought that there might be a natural, fundamental moral
obligation to fast before and apart from ecclesiastical injunc-
tions. And many a priest would not be quite so ready to grant
general mitigations of ecclesiastical rules of fasting were he to
see in them not merely disciplinary regulations, but, with the
"universal teacher," specific applications of a universal natural
law,

182

On Fasting

Needless to say, this natural obligation to fast takes <
higher meaning and a deeper motivation from faith in C
and from the supernatural love of God. The theme of
perfection of nature through grace recurs here also. That
fection is represented in the very specifications which the '
of nature" experiences in the Church's rules of fasting.

The great fast of forty days, for instance, signifies that
Christian is preparing to share in the celebration of the my
ies of the death and resurrection of the Lord, wherein
redemption, which has its inception in the Incarnation, c
finally to fruition. To obtain a share in these exalted rea
demands in a special sense the prepared vessel of a free
"ordered" heart; on the other hand, no other reality, no o
truth can so assuage and transform the innermost man.

"Can a man sin by fasting too strictly?" Nothing seems
pressing than this question, which heads one of the article
St. Thomas. But let it be noted in passing that he answe
affirmatively. For him, fasting is an act of abstinently an a<
the virtue of abstinence, related, be it said, to the ar
healing. Again it is a question not of effort or castigation,
of the realization of the "order of reason."

With St. Jerome, St. Thomas says that to oppress one's I
by exaggerated fasting and vigils is like bringing stolen g<
as a sacrificial offering. And in the Summa Theologica, we
the deeply Catholic thought that the Church, in her fas
regulations, is anxious also not to overtax nature, the nal
will to live. Characteristically, and not at all surprisingly
the very article on fasting St. Thomas who has been
named "Thomas of God the Creator" mentions and rej
Manichaeism, his constant and primary adversary. The fol
ing comments, also, should not be omitted here: "If one kr
ingly abstained from wine to the point of oppressing m
seriously, he would not be free of guilt;" and: "For a man
sinful to weaken his sexual potency by too strict fast

TEMPERANCE

Admittedly, these propositions take no prominent pkce in St.
Thomas's works they are slipped in more or less in passing.
But one might be tempted to mistake his thesis on the natural
obligation to fast for stark, unrelieved asceticism, were it not
for these bright sparks of affirmation. Nonetheless, the validity
of this thesis retains its full force.

Transgressions against the virtue of abstinentia, that is,
against the "rational order" in the sphere of enjoyment of food
and drink, are apt to be taken very lightly, if they are sub-
jected to moral judgment at all. But to one who holds for a
clear, decisive affirmation of the Christian image of man, the
destructive effect of an obsessive preoccupation with the what
and how much of food and drink is perfectly obvious. St.
Thomas calls this effect hebetudo sensus the dulling and ob-
scuring of the inner perception of spiritual realities. And
might there not be a causal connection between this by now
customary and fully accepted phenomenon of the dullness of
inner perception, and the equally accepted and customary lax-
ity? We might find cause for reflection in the wisdom of the
Orient.

In Dante's cosmological poem, we find, in the second of the
three cantos of the Purgatorio which treat of abstaining from
the "gratification of the palate," an extremely striking, indeed
a quite disconcerting, stanza. It says of the penitents: "The
sockets of their eyes seemed rings without gems. Whoso in the
face of men reads OMO, would surely there have recognized
the M." What is implied here is nothing less than this: through
the penance of fasting, that which was devastated by the
"gratification of the palate" is restored, namely, the inner form
of man.

But to return once more to "cheerfulness of heart": Fasting
should be performed with a cheerful heart. This is, as it were,
a polemical exhortation. Christ Himself has named its counter-

184.

On Fasting

part "the disfigured faces of the hypocrites." And the ex
rience of the ascetics furnishes another obverse.

All discipline, we have said, has reference to the operat
person. This reference, however, bears in itself the const
danger of the loss of self-detachment, and of a change ii
self -righteousness, which draws from its ascetic "achievemen
the profit of a solid self-admiration. Vanity, self-importar
impatient arrogance rising superior to the "imperfect" th
are the specific perils of the ascetic. Gregory the Great poi
this out clearly in his "Rule for Pastors," an inexhaustible tre
ure house of practical wisdom.

Cheerfulness of heart, however, is the mark of selflessn
By this sign and seal one is sure to recognize that hypocr
and all manner of tense self -involvement are done away wj
Cheerfulness of heart is the infallible token that reveals
inner genuineness of discipline as selfless preservation of
self.

6. The Sense of Touch

ST. THOMAS says that temperantia has reference above
all to the pleasure assigned to the sense of touch. And to this
sense are assigned both sexual pleasure and the pleasures of
eating and drinking.

We are too apt to take these statements with false literalness
and to misinterpret them to the point of excessive triviality.
Therefore it is necessary to point out briefly that they have a
depth of bearing unsuspected at first glance, and why this is
so.

The sense of touch, according to St. Thomas (and
Aristotle) has a special rank among the senses. It is not a sense
among other senses* but is the "basis of the other senses"; "all
other senses are based on the sense of touch." In this sense of
touch there is contained principally the entire essence of the
senses in general. By the sense of touch, above all, a being
becomes sentient animal-^ where there is no sense of touch,
there is no sentient life. This is the first point.

Second: "Among all sentient creatures man has the best
sense of touch." "There are animals which see more sharply or
hear more acutely or smell more intensely than man. In the
sense of touch, however, man differs from all other sentient
beings by having a much more acute perception."

And third: "Among men themselves those who possess the
better sense of touch have the better power of cognition."
"One might suppose that cognitive talent should rather corre-

186

The Sense of Touch

spend to the excellence of the sense of sight than to that of
touch, as the sense of sight is the intellectual sense and best
perceives differences in things. . . . But one must say that
cognitive talent corresponds more to the excellence of the
sense of touch because the sense of touch is the basis of all
other senses. Therefore he who has the better sense of touch
has consequently simply a more sensitive nature and as a result
a keener intelligence. For the excellence of sensitivity is the
basis of excellence of intelligence. But from the fact that one
has a better auditory or a better visual sense it does not follow-
that he is simply more sensitive; at most this is so only in a
certain respect.''

These three thoughts, as surprising to come upon as a treas-
ure trove, are here merely quoted and not commented on. For
the purpose of this book, it is of no importance what modern
sensorial physiology, for instance, would say to this. A look
into the manuals will show that the basic approach in both the
questions and the replies of St. Thomas is so immeasurably
removed from today's notions that they cannot even be said to
contradict each other.

But it is important to recognize that according to St.
Thomas, the virtue of temperance, especially in its primordial
forms of chastity and abstinence, relates to the root of the
whole of sensual-intellectual life. Moderation extends its order-
ing mastery down to the fountainhead from which the figure
of moral man springs up unceasingly.

Still another connection, hidden up to now, becomes visible
in the conceptual field of relations pertaining to moderation.

The sense of touch is also the organ of pain. And mastery of
the spirit over pleasure linked with the sense of touch equally
signifies mastery over pain.

Discipline, says Ernst Jiinger in his notable essay "Concern-
ing Pain," has no other significance than this: to keep life in

TEMPERANCE

constant contact with pain and by this means in readiness "to
be sacrificed for the purpose of a higher order.' 5

Needless to say, the masklike rigidity of Jiinger's concept of
"discipline" is essentially different from the Christian concept
of temperance and moderation. Jiinger would never have been
able to endorse St. Thomas's proposition: "The goal and norm
of temperance is blessedness." And yet, if we regard the Chris-
tian notion of temperance from the angle of pain, a sterner
face rises behind the foreground of creational joy, a face
molded by the decision to relinquish the created for the sake
of the Creator. But this sterner face, also, radiates an assenting
joy, immeasurably above all ingenuous rejoicing in the created.

1 88

7. Humility

ONE OF THE GOODS in which man naturally seeks
fulfillment of his being is excellentia: superiority, pre-emi-
nence, consideration. The virtue of temperance, insofar as it
relates this natural urge to the order of reason, is called humil-
ity. The ground of humility is man's estimation of himself
according to truth. And that is almost all there is to it.

Starting from this definition, it is difficult to understand how
"humility" could have become, as it were, a bone of conten-
tion. To disregard the demonic resistance against good which
makes this feature of the Christian image of man its particular
target, is possible only because the notion of humility has be-
come blurred even in the Christian consciousness. In the whole
tractate of St. Thomas concerning humility and pride, there is
not a single sentence to suggest an attitude, on principle, of
constant self-accusation, of disparagement of one's being and
doing, of cringing inferiority feelings, as belonging to humility
or any other Christian virtue.

Nothing lights the way to a proper understanding of humil-
ity more tellingly than this: humility and high-mindedness not
only are not mutually exclusive, but actually are neighbors and
akin; and both are equally opposed to either pride or pusil-
lanimity.

What is meant by high-mindedness or magnanimity? It is
the striving of the mind toward great things. High-minded is
the man who feels the potentiality of greatness and prepares

189

TEMPERANCE

for it. The high-minded or magnanimous man is, in a certain
sense, "selective." He will not be accessible to every approach,
but will keep himself for the greatness to which he feels akin.
Above all, high-mindedness is demanding as to honor: "The
high-minded man strives toward that which deserves the high-
est honor." In the Sumna Theologica we read: "If a man
should despise honor to the extent that he would not take
care to do what is deserving of honor, this would be
blameworthy." On the other hand, the high-minded man is not
crushed by dishonor; he disregards it as something beneath
him. The high-minded man despises everything small-minded.
He would never prize another man so highly as to do anything
improper for his sake. The words of the Psalmist (Psalm 14, 4),
"The evil-doer is nothing in his sight," refer to the high-
minded "contempt of men" of the just, says St. Thomas. Fear-
less frankness is the hallmark of high-mindedness; nothing is
further from it than to suppress truth from fear. Flattery and
dissimulation are equally removed from the high-minded. The
high-minded man does not complain; for his heart is impervious
to external evil. High-mindedness implies an unshakable firm-
ness of hope, an actually challenging assurance, and the perfect
peace of a fearless heart. The high-minded man bows neither
to confusion of the soul, nor to any man, nor to fate but to
God alone.

One marvels to learn that this description of high-minded-
ness is drawn, trait by trait, in the Sunmm Theologica of
Aquinas. This needed to be made clear. For in the treatise on
humility it is said repeatedly that humility is not opposed to
high-mindedness. Now we can fathom the true significance of
this statement, spoken as if it were a warning and a caution.
This is its meaning: a "humility" too weak and too narrow to
be able to bear the inner tension of cohabitation with high-
mindedness is not true humility.

The customary judgment of men is always prone to call a
high-minded man a haughty man, and so equally to miss the

190

Humility

true nature of humility. "A haughty man" this is easily and
quickly said. But only rarely is the quality here implied that of
pride (super bio). Pride is not, in the first place, a quality of
everyday behavior in human relationships. Pride refers to
man's relationship to God. Pride is the anti-realistic denial of
the relationship between creature and Creator; pride denies the
creaturely nature of man. Every sin contains two elements: a
turning away from God and a turning toward transitory good;
the decisive and defining element is the first one: the turning
away from God. And this is more pronounced in pride than in
any other sin. "All sins flee before God; pride alone stands up
against God." Holy Scripture says of the proud alone that
"God flouts the scornful" (James 4, 6).

Humility, too, is not primarily an attitude in human relation-
ships. Humility, too, looks first to God. That which pride
denies and destroys, humility afErms and preserves: the crea-
turely quality of man. If to be a creature to be created is
the innermost nature of man, then humility, as "subjection of
man to God," is the affirmation of this essential and primordial
fact. Second: Humility, consequently, is not outward behavior
but an inner attitude, born of decision of the will. Regarding
God and its own creaturely quality, it is an attitude of perfect
recognition of that which, by reason of God's will, really is\
above all, it is candid acceptance of this one thing: that man
and humanity are neither God nor "like God." At this point
we get a glimpse of the hidden connection that links the Chris-
tian virtue of humility with the perhaps equally Christian
gift of humor.

Third, and finally: Can we avoid stating outright that be-
yond everything said so far, humility is also an attitude of man
to man, namely, the attitude of self-abasement of one before
the other? Let us examine this more closely.

In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas specifically raises the
question of the humble attitude of man to man, and answers it
as follows: "In man, two things have to be considered: that

291

TEMPERANCE

which is of God, and that which is of man. . . . But humility
in the strict sense means the awe in virtue of which man sub-
jects himself to God. Consequently man, with regard to that
which is of himself, must subject himself to his neighbor with
regard to that which is of God in him. But humility does not
require that one subject that which is of God in himself to that
which seems to be of God in the other. . . . Humility like-
wise does not require that one subject that which is of himself
to that which is of man in the other."

In the broad and many-graded area of this reply there is
room for the "contempt of men" on the part of the high-
rninded just as there is for the self-abasement of St. Francis of
Assisi, who took off his cowl and had himself brought before
the people with a rope around his neck. Here again it becomes
evident that Christian teaching is wary of the tightness and
confinement of one-track rules. This caution or, better, aver-
sion is voiced by St. Augustine in another though related ref-
erence: "If one man says you should not receive the Eucharist
every day, and another says the opposite, let each one do what
he thinks he should, in piety, according to his own belief. For
neither did Zacchseus and the Roman officer dispute with one
another, although the one received the Lord with joy into his
house and the other said: 'I am not worthy that thou shouldst
enter under my roof (Luke 19, 6; 7, 6). Both honored the Re-
deemer, though not in the same manner."

192

8. The Power of Wrath

IN CHRISTIAN PARLANCE, the notions of "sensuality,"
"passion," "desire" are customarily though very unjustly
understood exclusively as "anti-spiritual sensuality," "wicked
passion," "rebellious desire." Such a constriction of an origi-
nally much broader meaning obscures the important fact that
all these notions by no means have a merely negative sense;
rather, they represent forces from which the essence of human
nature is built up and draws its life. The same is true of the
notion of wrath or anger. At the mention of anger, Christian
awareness sees as a rule only the uncontrolled, the anti-
spiritual, the negative aspect. But, as with "sensuality" and
"desire," the power of wrath also belongs to the primal forces
of human nature. In this power of wrath, the energy of human
nature is most clearly expressed. It is a force directed toward
the difficult of achievement, toward the thing beyond the easy
grasp, ever ready to expose itself wherever an "arduous good"
waits to be conquered. "The power of anger is given to sen-
tient beings so that the hindrances may be removed whereby
the force of desire is impeded from striving toward its object,
whether because of the difficulty of achieving a good or be-
cause of the difficulty of overcoming an evil." Wrath is the
strength to attack the repugnant; the power of anger is ac-
tually the power of resistance in the soul.

Whoever, therefore, stigmatizes the power of wrath as some-
thing in itself anti-spiritual and consequently to be "mortified"
is committing the same error as one who similarly slights "sen-

'93

TEMPERANCE

suality," "passion," and "desire." Both contemn the basic
forces of our being; both are offending the Creator, who, as
the liturgy of the Church says, has "marvelously established
the dignity of human nature."

Concerning wrath (in the narrower sense), understood as
the passionate desire for just retribution of injustice that has
been suffered, St. Thomas, in repudiation of the Stoics, says
the following: "Because the nature of man is constructed of
soul and body, of spirit and sensuality, it belongs to the good
of man to devote himself utterly to virtue, namely with spirit,
sensuality, and body alike. And therefore man's virtue requires
that the will for just retribution reside not only in the spiritual
realm of the soul, but also in sensuality and in the body itself."
This passage is found in the great work of St. Thomas's later
life, the De Malo, in an article discussing the question
"whether all wrath is evil." Anger is "good" if, in accordance
with the order of reason, it is brought into service for the true
goals of man; one who does good with passion is more praise-
worthy than one who is "not entirely" afire for the good,
even to the forces of the sensual realm. Gregory the Great
says: "Reason opposes evil the more effectively when anger
ministers at her side." And what was said of the power of
sexual desire, which overwhelms reason, is likewise true of the
obscuring power of anger: "It is not contrary to the nature of
virtue that the consideration of reason comes to a stop in the
execution of that which reason has already considered; even
art would be impeded in its activity if it should wish to con-
sider what was to be done where it was a question of immedi-
ate action."

The surprise with which we reflect on these statements
makes us aware once again how far we are from considering
the whole man in our conception of the moral good. We real-
ize how much we almost unconsciously tend to take the
"purely spiritual" for actual humanity; how much, on the

The Power of Wrath

other hand, the "ancients" can teach us and make us once again
embrace the full created nature of world and man, in its true
reality.

It is self-evident that the anger which breaks all bounds and
disrupts the order of reason is evil and is sin. Blind wrath,
bitterness of spirit, and revengeful resentment, the three basic
forms of intemperate anger, are therefore evil and contrary to
order.

Blind wrath shuts the eyes of the spirit before they have
been able to grasp the facts and to judge them; bitterness and
resentment, with a grim joy in negation, close their ears to the
language of truth and love; they poison the heart like a fester-
ing ulcer. Also evil, of course, is all anger linked to unjust
desire. This needs no further discussion.

In the upsurge of his self-will, the intemperately angry man
feels as if he were drawing his whole being together like a club
ready to strike. But this is the very thing he fails to achieve.
Only gentleness and mildness can accomplish it. (The two are
not equivalent; mildness is gentleness turned toward what is
without.) "Gentleness above all makes man master of himself."
Holy Scripture speaks of this virtue in much the same terms as
of patience. In St. Luke's Gospel, it is said of patience that
through it man possesses his soul; and of gentleness it is said:
"Possess thy soul through gentleness" (Eccles. 10, 31).

Gentleness, however, does not signify that the original
power of wrath is weakened or, worse still, "mortified," just as
chastity does not imply a weakening of sexual power. On the
contrary: gentleness as a virtue presupposes the power of
wrath; gentleness implies mastery of this power, not its
weakening. We should not mistake the pale-faced harmlessness
which pretends to be gentleness unfortunately often success-
fully for a Christian virtue. Lack of sensuality is not chas-
tity; and incapacity for wrath has nothing to do with gentle-

TEMPERANCE

ness. Such incapacity not only is not a virtue, but, as St.
Thomas expressly says, a fault: peccatum and vitium.

In the Swnma Theologica 7 St. Thomas raises and answers a
remarkable question: Which is the greater evil and wrong:
intemperateness in wrath, or intemperateness in pleasure? His
reply is: If we consider the fruits of each, it is intemperate
wrath that is, as a rule, the greater evil, as it commonly works
against the welfare of one's neighbor. But if we consider the
passion itself, which in both cases degenerates into intemperate-
ness, then intemperate pleasure is the greater wrong, for var-
ious reasons. The excitement of anger, for example, since it is
aroused by an injustice, still in some way appertains to reason;
whereas pleasure refers exclusively to sensuality. Speaking ab-
solutely, the sin of intemperate wrath is less evil than intemper-
ate pleasure, in the same proportion as the good of justice
toward which the angry man is directed ranks above the pleas-
ure-seeking of the lustful man. This, also, is the reason why the
intemperately lustful man is more contemptible than the im-
moderately angry one. Further, immoderate wrath is as a rule
conditioned by the physical constitution that is, by natural
disposition more than immoderate pleasure-seeking. (For this
reason, the inclination to immoderate anger is more easily and
frequently hereditary than that of immoderate pleasure-seek-
ing.) And finally, the intemperately wrathful man is less obnox-
ious than the intemperately lustful one, because the former,
akin to the high-minded, is all frankness, while the immoderate
pleasure-seeker, intent on dissimulation and camouflage, is un-
able to give or take a straight look in the eye.

It is particularly in reference to overcoming intemperateness
of sensual desire that the power of wrath acquires a special
importance.

Aquinas, it is true, also says that an acute temptation to
unchastity is most easily conquerable by flight. But he likewise

/ $6

The Power of Wrath

knows that the addiction to degenerate pleasure-seeking cai
by no means be cured through a merely negative approach
through convulsively "shutting one's mind" to it. Thomas be
lieves that the deterioration of one power of the soul should b
healed and supplemented by the still undamaged core of som
other power. Thus it should be possible to subdue and, as i
were, to quench the limp intemperateness of an unchaste lust
fulness by attacking a difficult task with the resilient joy gener
ated in the full power of wrath.

Only the combination of the intemperateness of lustfulnes
with the lazy inertia incapable of generating anger is the sigi
of complete and virtually hopeless degeneration. It appear
whenever a caste, a people, or a whole civilization is ripe fo
its decline and fall.

9. Disciplining the Eyes

THAT THE WORDS studiositcts and curiositas were not
translated at their first mention was not unintentional nor in-
deed without necessity. Of course it would be easy enough to
render them, following the dictionary, as "desire for knowl-
edge" or "zeal," for the first, and "inquisitiveness," for the
second. But this would amount to suppressing their most im-
portant meaning. Further, one might think that we speak but
trivially and condescendingly of the virtue of the "good stu-
dent" and of the more or less harmless weakness of the woman
gossiping across the back fence.

Studiositas, curiositas by these are meant temperateness
and intemperance, respectively, in the natural striving for
knowledge; temperateness and intemperance, above all, in the
indulgence of the sensual perception of the manifold sensuous
beauty of the world; temperateness and intemperance in the
"desire for knowledge and experience," as St. Augustine puts
it.

Nietzsche said that wisdom "puts limits to knowledge."
Whatever he himself may have meant by this, there is no doubt
that the will-to-knowledge, this noble power of the human
being, requires a restraining wisdom, "in order that man may
not strive immoderately for the knowledge of things."

But in what consists such immoderateness? Certainly not (as
has been said by St. Thomas, in refutation of the scorners of

198

Disciplining the Eyes

natural creation, and as we must repeat today, addressing c
selves to the same tendencies) in the fact that the mind of r
strives to unseal the natural secrets and locked places of a
tion: consequently not in "secular science" per se. Concern
the study of philosophy, for instance, we read in the Sun
Theologica that it is "to be praised for the truth which ^
recognized by the (pagan) philosophers, namely, as the E
tie to the Romans says (i, 19) because God revealed it
them."

All the same, in view of the armed attack upon the nati
mysteries of creation, it would be well to keep in mind
startling phrase of the aged Goethe: "We would have a bei
knowledge of things if we did not try to know them so th
oughly."

Immoderateness in striving for knowledge, says St. Thon
is exemplified in magic. Nowadays, this thought makes
smile. But are we really so far removed from being willing
pay the price even of our salvation for the unlocking of :
penetrabilities, should the choice be open to us that is
question. Further, it is also immoderate and senseless to try
master God Himself and His work by deciphering His int
tions. We may, for instance, be able to grasp in faith the acti
ity and the ultimate meaning of God's working in history. 1
no man can presume on his own to point to any providen
happening of the here and now, and to say: "God has ma
fested His intention in this or that reward or punishmc
confirmation or rejection." This temptation to unveil Gc
inscrutability for tangible everyday use, thereby negating it
concealed under a thousand disguises and is equally close f <.
perilous for the most profound as for the most superfi<
minds. St. Augustine writes in his Confessions: "Indeed, I
longer trouble myself about the course of the stars, and :
soul hath never sought an answer from the shades; I conde
all this blasphemous magic. But how hath the Enemy sedu<
me with his thousandfold wiles that I, O Lord my God, sho

*99

TEMPERANCE

require a sign from Thee, whom I should serve all loyally and
simply!"

The essential intemperateness of the urge for knowledge,
however, is "concupiscence of the eyes." Only by working
through a tangled thicket of vague and false interpretation,
and by following the guidance of St. Augustine and St.
Thomas, can we obtain a grasp of the true significance of this
word of Scripture. It has, as will be seen, an immediate rele-
vance to modern man.

There is a gratification in seeing that reverses the original
meaning of vision and works disorder in man himself. The true
meaning of seeing is perception of reality. But "concupiscence
of the eyes" does not aim to perceive reality, but to enjoy
"seeing." St. Augustine says of the "concupiscence of the pal-
ate" that it is not a question of satiating one's hunger but of
tasting and relishing food; this is also true of curiositas and the
"concupiscence of the eyes." "What this seeing strives for is
not to attain knowledge and to become cognizant of the truth,
but for possibilities of relinquishing oneself to the world," says
Heidegger in his book Being and Time.

Aquinas assigns curiositas to the "roaming unrest of spirit,"
evagatio mentis, which he says is the first-born daughter of
acedia. Since these interrelations are anything but construc-
tions of a game of allegories, it is well worth while to give
them a moment's closer scrutiny. Acedia is the dreary sadness
of a heart unwilling to accept the greatness to which man is
called by God; this inertia raises its paralyzing face wherever
man is trying to shake off the obligatory nobility of being that
belongs to his essential dignity as a person, and particularly the
nobility of the sonship of God, thus denying his true self.
Acedia, says Thomas, first shows its effect in the "roaming
unrest of the spirit." (Its second daughter is despair, and this
kinship throws revealing sidelights on the subject of our pres-
ent discussion.) "Roaming unrest of the spirit," on the other
hand, manifests itself in verbosity, in unbridled desire "to burst

200

Disciplining the Eyes

forth from the citadel of the spirit into diversity"; in inn
restlessness, in instability of place as well as instability of resol
tion, and especially in the insatiability of curiositas.

Accordingly, the degeneration into curiositas of the natui
wish to see may be much more than a harmless confusion c
the surface of the human being. It may be the sign of comple
rootlessness. It may mean that man has lost his capacity f<
living with himself; that, in flight from himself, nauseated ar
bored by the void of an interior life gutted by despair, he
seeking with selfish anxiety and on a thousand futile paths th
'which is given only to the noble stillness of a heart held reac
for sacrifice and thus in possession of itself, namely, the fu]
ness of being. Because he is not really living from the we]
spring of his nature, he seeks, as Heidegger says, in "curiosit
to which nothing remains closed," the pledge of a supposed]
genuine "living Life."

Not for nothing does Holy Scripture name "concupiscenc
of the eyes" among the three powers which constitute tl
world that "lieth in the power of evil" (I John 2, 16; 5, 19) .

It reaches the extremes of its destructive and eradicatic
power when it builds itself a world according to its own imaj
and likeness: when it surrounds itself with the restlessness of
perpetual moving picture of meaningless shows, and with tl
literally deafening noise of impressions and sensations breatl
lessly rushing past the windows of the senses. Behind tl
flimsy pomp of its facade dwells absolute nothingness; it is
world of, at most, ephemeral creations, which often within le
than a quarter hour become stale and discarded, like a newsp;
per or magazine swiftly scanned or merely perused; a wor]
which, to the piercing eye of the healthy mind untouched b
its contagion, appears like the amusement quarter of a big cit
in the hard brightness of a winter morning: desperately bar
disconsolate, and ghostly.

The destructiveness of this disorder which originates fror
and grows upon, obsessive addiction, lies in the fact that

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TEMPERANCE

stifles man's primitive power of perceiving reality; that it
makes man incapable not only of coming to himself but also of
reaching reality and truth.

If such an illusory world threatens to overgrow and smother
the world of real things, then to restrain the natural wish to see
takes on the character of a measure of self-protection and self-
defense. Studiositas, in this frame of reference, primarily
signifies that man should oppose this virtually inescapable se-
duction with all the force of selfless self-preservation; that he
should hermetically close the inner room of his being against
the intrusively boisterous pseudo-reality of empty shows and
sounds. It is in such an asceticism of cognition alone that he
may preserve or regain that which actually constitutes man's
vital existence: the perception of the reality of God and His
creation, and the possibility of shaping himself and the world
according to this truth, which reveals itself only in silence.

202

10. The Fruits of Temperance

TO THE VIRTUE OF TEMPERANCE as the preserving anc
defending realization of man's inner order, the gift of beauty i
particularly co-ordinated. Not only is temperance beautiful ir
itself, it also renders men beautiful. Beauty, however, mus
here be understood in its original meaning: as the glow of th<
true and the good irradiating from every ordered state o
being, and not in the patent significance of immediate sensua
appeal. The beauty of temperance has a more spiritual, mor<
austere, more virile aspect. It is of the essence of this beaut)
that it does not conflict with true virility, but rather has ai
affinity to it. Temperance, as the wellspring and premise o
fortitude, is the virtue of mature manliness.

The infantile disorder of intemperance, on the other hand
not only destroys beauty, it also makes man cowardly; intern
perance more than any other thing renders man unable anc
unwilling to "take heart" against the wounding power of evi
in the world.

It is not easy to read in a man's face whether he is just o
unjust. Temperance or intemperance, however, loudly pro
claim themselves in everything that manifests a personality: i
the order or disorder of the features, in the attitude, the laugt
the handwriting. Temperance, as the inner order of man, cai
as little remain "purely interior" as the soul itself, and as a]
other life of the soul or mind. It is the nature of the soul to b
the "form of the body."

203

TEMPERANCE

This fundamental principle of all Christian psychology not
only states the in-forming of the body by the soul, but also the
reference of the soul to the body. On this, a second factor is
based: temperance or intemperance of outward behavior and
expression can have its strengthening or weakening repercus-
sion on the inner order of man. It is from this point of view
that all outer discipline whether in the sphere of sexual pleas-
ure or in that of eating and drinking, of self-assertion, of
anger, and of the gratification of the eye obtains its meaning,
its justification, and its necessity.

It is a noteworthy fact but who has ever called attention to
it? that almost all pathological obsessions, witnesses as they
are to a disturbed inner order, belong to the sphere of tem-
perantia: sexual aberrations as well as dipsomania, delusion of
grandeur, pathological irascibility, and the passive craving of
the rootless for sensations. All these petrifactions of selfishness
are accompanied by the despair of missing the goal striven for
with such violent exertion of will namely, the gratification of
the self. In the nature of things, all selfish self-seeking is a
desperate effort. For it is a natural, primal fact, prior to all
human decision, that man loves God more than himself, and
consequently that he must of necessity miss his very goal
himself by following the ungodly, the "anti-godly," path of
selfishness.

Intempercmtia and despair are connected by a hidden chan-
nel. Whoever in stubborn recklessness persists in pursuing per-
fect satisfaction and gratification in prestige and pleasure has
set his foot on the road to despair. Another thing, also, is true:
one who rejects fulfillment in its true and final meaning, and,
despairing of God and himself, anticipates nonfulfillment, may
weU regard the artificial paradise of unrestrained pleasure-seek-
ing as the sole pkce, if not of happiness, then of forgetfulness,
of self-oblivion: "In their despair, they gave themselves up to
incontinence" (Ephesians 4, 19). That sin is a burden and a

204

The Fruits of Temperance

bondage is nowhere more apparent than in intemperantia, i
that obsession of selfish self -preservation, which seeks itself i
vain.

Temperance, on the contrary, is liberating and purifying
This above all: temperance effects purification.

If one approaches the difficult concept of purity throug
this strangely neglected gateway and begins to understand pi
rity as the fruit of purification, the confusing and discordar
sounds which usually obscure this notion and move it dar
gerously close to Manichaeism are silenced. From this aj
proach the full and unrestricted concept of purity s
different from the currently accepted one comes into view.

This is the purity meant by John Cassian when he cal
purity of heart the immanent purpose of temperance: "It
served by solitude, fasting, night watches, and penitence." It
this wider concept of purity which is referred to in St. Augu
tine's statement that the virtue of temperance and moderatic
aims at preserving man uninjured and undefiled for God.

But what does this unrestricted concept of purity stand f 01
It stands for that crystal-clear, morning-fresh freedom fro
self-consciousness, for that selfless acceptance of the wot
which man experiences when the. shock of a profound sorro
carries him to the brink of existence or when he is touched t
the shadow of death. It is said in the Scriptures: "Grave illne
sobers the soul" (Eccles. 31, 2); this sobriety belongs to tl
essence of purity. That most disputed statement of Aristotl
tragedy causes purification, catharsis, points in the same dire
tion. Even the Holy Spirit's gift of fear, which St. Thorn
assigns to temper antia, purifies the soul by causing it to exp
rience, through grace, the innermost peril of man. Its fruit
that purity by dint of which the selfish and furtive search f
spurious fulfillment is abandoned. Purity is the perfect unfol
ing of the whole nature from which alone could have come t!
words: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord! " (Luke i, 38).

A new depth here opens to our view: purity is not only t

205

TEMPERANCE

fruit of purification; it implies at the same time readiness to
accept God's purifying intervention, terrible and fatal though
it might be; to accept it with the bold candor of a trustful
heart, and thus to experience its fruitful and transforming
power.

This, then, is the ultimate meaning of the virtue of temper-
ance.

206

JOSEF PIEPER

ENTHUSIASM
AND DI\ r IXE
MADNESS

On the Platonic Dialogue Phaedrus

Plato's famous dialogue, the Phaedrus, wa*
variously subtitled in antiquity: "On Beauty/ 1
"On Love," "On the Psyche." It is also con-
cerned with the art of rhetoric, of thought
and communication.

Dr. Pieper, noted for the grace and clarity
of his style, gives an illuminating and stimu
lating interpretation of the dialogue. Leaving
the more recondite scholarly preoccupation!
aside, he concentrates on the content, bring
ing the actual situation in the dialogue-
Athens and its intellectuals engaged in spiritec
debate alive. Equally alive is the discussior
of ideas, which are brought to be^L ?n con
temporary experience ai 1 nnJe to piovc th<
perennial vi i.u.iv ci :cn;ir wisdom, anc it
power to ?:iit; : ] ie :i"'id. The :if i . les:
that in pc t \ i \ i : i . 3 n lo\ e : 1 1 ( - ' 1 1
self/' thi- is, i 1 \irH) ; i: -i rtd--.
with refeienijo f o moder-: (,.oc:,- and .l
and modem psycholo^.

This is a book for .ill thote who iU!.
read Plaf) vith understanding, piti.burf :
profit.

n {) Richard ind Clara f 1 ' v-tct

A K-U;> **MJ u 41 n'o]^ BOOK

134011

s

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